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On October 6, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB325, a law targeting the use and distribution of certain algorithmic pricing tools. This law is part of a larger legislative trend to try to rein in algorithmic pricing. But while other bills have focused narrowly on the rental housing market and languished in state legislatures, California’s bill targets pricing algorithms in all markets and will take effect in 2026. However, a violation of the new law requires a conspiracy or price coercion, so as a practical matter, it may not extend the range of violations already encompassed by the Cartwright Act.Continue Reading California Passes Broad Limits on “Common Pricing Algorithms”

On June 6, 2024, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he led a multistate coalition of eleven (11) state attorneys general in in submitting a comment letter (the “Comment Letter”) in response to the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (together the “Agencies”) request for information regarding consolidation in healthcare by private equity. On March 5, 2024, the Agencies issued a “Request for Information on Consolidation in Healthcare Markets,” on the same day the Agencies hosted a public workshop regarding the impact of private equity investment in the healthcare system. Continue Reading California Attorney General Advocates for Greater Antitrust Enforcement in Private Equity in Healthcare

Parties involved in or considering health care transactions in California have been focused on navigating the new rules set by California’s Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA),[1] and newly proposed legislation could present additional challenges in consummating certain health care transactions, particularly those involving private equity. Introduced in February 2024, California’s Assembly Bill 3129 seeks to curb consolidation in the health care industry allegedly driven by private equity firms and hedge funds. As summarized in greater detail below, the bill would require that these parties obtain prior written consent from California’s Attorney General (AG) before an acquisition or change of control of many types of health care businesses and assets.Continue Reading California’s AB 3129: A New Hurdle for Private Equity Health Care Transactions on the Horizon?

A revenue-sharing agreement among grocery stores, designed to help the stores weather targeted strikes by employees during labor strife, is not shielded from antitrust scrutiny by virtue of the non-statutory labor exemption, but neither is it so obviously anticompetitive to merit condemnation under a “quick-look” analysis, an en banc panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court recently held. California ex rel. Harris v. Safeway, Inc., No. 08-55671 (9th Cir. July 12, 2011). 
Continue Reading Grocers’ Revenue-Sharing Deal Deserves More Than a Quick Look, Ninth Circuit Holds