Paul Gluckman

There’s “clearly a stronger appetite” for antitrust litigation under the current leadership of the FTC and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Hogan Lovells partner Edith Ramirez said on her firm’s webinar Wednesday. She chaired the FTC during President Barack Obama’s second term. “We are seeing greater inclination on the part of the agencies to litigate, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” she said. “A lot of the cases that we’re seeing the agencies bring are ones that we would have seen in the past, but there are also cases that likely would not have been brought,” said Ramirez. “The upshot is that the review process is taking a lot longer, it’s a lot more burdensome and a lot more uncertain for the parties.” Those parties, she said, “are facing a number of high-stakes strategy decisions today as a matter of course, including whether they will be prepared to litigate if the agency disagrees with their arguments.” On how the FTC and DOJ “are being tested in court,” Ramirez thinks “so far, they have a mixed record.” In DOJ’s November 2021 lawsuit to block Penguin Random House’s buy of Simon & Schuster, “that was a matter in which DOJ did prevail,” said Ramirez. DOJ successfully argued “that the combination of the two publishing companies would lead to diminished competition,” she said. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also agreed with DOJ that the transaction “would increase the likelihood of coordinated conduct among the remaining players,” she said. “I think we’re going to see more coordinated-conduct theories being asserted by the agencies going forward.”

Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile (XM) seeks expedited discovery in its complaint to thwart illegal trafficking in stolen phones (see 2211170061), said its motion Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-01950]) in U.S. District Court for Arizona. XM especially seeks permission to serve nonparty subpoenas because certain nonparties “have significant evidence relevant to this case that they are otherwise under no duty to preserve and may destroy pursuant to their corporate document retention policies,” said the motion.

T-Mobile and Crown Castle, the lessee and subtenant, respectively, in a long-standing cell tower lease agreement in Albuquerque, are locked in a dispute with the property owner over Crown Castle’s inability to upgrade the tower for Dish Network’s 5G network buildout, alleged the companies in a complaint Monday (docket 1:22-cv-00910) in U.S. District Court for New Mexico. The defendant property owner, Academy Medical Office, “actively obstructed” the companies’ efforts “to obtain a permit from the municipality that is necessary to complete certain work” at the facility, said the complaint.

Multiple allegations “strongly support” the conclusion that defendants in the litigation involving accusations of insider trading of Intelsat stock knew of and possessed material nonpublic information (MNPI) “at the time they traded,” said lead plaintiff Walleye Group in its second amended class action Monday (docket 4:20-cv-02341) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland.

Masimo and its Cercacor Labs subsidiary went too far in their proposed final judgment and permanent injunction against former Chief Technology Officer Marcelo Lamego when they sought to prevent Lamego and his company, True Wearables, from keeping certain confidential documents, said their objections Monday (docket 8:18-cv-02001) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana.

It’s website developers, not Meta, that choose to deploy the Pixel tracking tool and select which webpages the Pixel is integrated on and what data is sent to Meta, said Meta software engineer Tobias Wooldridge in a heavily redacted declaration Wednesday (docket 3:22-cv-03580) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

An AT&T petition Monday in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa seeks to compel the production of documents from Voxon under a Sept. 19 subpoena issued by the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in a case (docket 2:21-cv-02771) in which AT&T is a defendant. Core Communications sued AT&T there in June 2021, seeking the recovery of $11.4 million in unpaid access services charges, and AT&T said in the petition (docket 8:22-mc-00043) that the Voxon documents are “directly relevant” to its defense in the case.

Masimo and its Cercacor Labs subsidiary moved Monday for a final judgment against former Chief Technology Officer Marcelo Lamego and a permanent injunction barring him from further misappropriating Masimo’s pulse oximetry trade secrets, said their proposed order (docket 8:18-cv-02001) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana. U.S. District Judge James Selna’s “finding of facts” ruling Nov. 7 also said Lamego breached his fiduciary duty of loyalty to Cercacor and he violated his employment agreements by keeping confidential information and documents (see 2211170034).

Amazon’s Oct. 3 complaint alleging Washington state’s requirement to abate hazards in the workplace violates its 14th Amendment rights to due process is a lawsuit that “fails at the starting gate,” said the Washington Department of Labor & Industries in a motion to dismiss Friday (docket 2:22-cv-01404) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle.

The FTC does not dispute that Meta is an American success story, said the agency Monday in its reply (docket 5:22-cv-04325) at the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose to Meta’s Nov. 14 opposition to the commission’s motion for an injunction to block Meta’s purchase of Within Unlimited. But against the backdrop of Meta’s enormous growth, the company’s arguments that it could not possibly have developed its own virtual-reality dedicated fitness app “ring hollow” and are “just not true,” said the FTC.