Antitrust Law Blog : Antitrust Lawyer & Attorney : Sheppard Mullin Law Firm : Antitrust Law Blog

On May 24, 2010, in a unanimous decision authored by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the Seventh Circuit and held that because the 32 teams of the NFL are independent centers of decision-making and could potentially compete with each other for the licensing of their separate intellectual property, “the NFL’s licensing activities constitute concerted action that is not categorically beyond the coverage of [Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1].” See American Needle, Inc. v. N.F.L., No. 08-661, slip. op. at 1, 12, 560 U. S. ____ (2010). Thus, the Court remanded the case for further proceedings to determine whether the alleged concerted action is an “unreasonable restraint of trade” under the Rule of Reason. Id. at 1, 20.
 

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On May 25, 2010, the Chinese State Administration of Industry and Commerce (“SAIC”) released new draft Rules On Monopoly Agreements (the “Rules”) for public comment. SAIC also released draft Rules Prohibiting Abuse Of Dominant Market Position and draft Rules On Administrative Monopoly for public comment on the same day.
 

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The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California recently held that a hospital and a physicians practice association, and a hospital and the physicians that provide services to it under contract, may be sufficiently distinct separate economic actors capable of conspiring with each other under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Perinatal Medical Group, Inc. et al. v. Children’s Hospital Central California et al, Case No. CV F 09-1273 LIO GSA (April 15, 2010). There are few Ninth Circuit cases addressing these issues and other circuits have come to different conclusions. More particularly, the Eastern District of California denied a motion to dismiss a complaint that alleged that a hospital and two independent physician practice associations conspired to restrain trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act by prohibiting neonatologists who did not agree to practice exclusively at the hospital or refer cases to doctors practicing exclusively neonatology at the hospital, from using the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.
 

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The United Kingdom's answer to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) has arrived. The UK Bribery Act 2010, which received Royal Assent on April 8, 2010, is both stricter and broader than the FCPA. The U.K. Ministry of Justice announced on July 23, 2010, that the implementation of the Act will be delayed until April 2011, which gives companies much-needed time to prepare for the changes it will bring.
 

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