U.S. District Judge Edward Davila for Northern California in San Jose signed a joint stipulation and order Wednesday (docket 5:22-cv-04325) extending by another month the temporary restraining order previously stipulated by the FTC and Meta in the commission’s lawsuit to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy. The TRO means Meta and Within agree not to consummate or close their proposed transaction until after 11:59 p.m. PST Jan. 31, or until the first business day after Davila rules on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction, said the stipulation.

The FTC should stop delaying and decide on Meta’s motion for the recusal of Chair Lina Khan in Meta's proposed Within Unlimited buy being heard in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose (docket 5:22-cv-04325), said Commissioner Christine Wilson in a statement Thursday. She noted Oct. 21 was the original deadline for the commission to issue a decision on the motion to stay administrative proceedings in its antitrust case against Meta’s Within Unlimited buy. The commission can’t decide whether to stay proceedings until it rules on Meta’s motion for disqualification, which was filed July 25, she said. The commission extended its own deadline to decide on the motion to stay proceedings in October, again in November and a third time Thursday, extending the deadline to Jan. 19. “The Motion to Stay was filed almost four months ago, and the Commission is now less than a month away from the beginning of the administrative trial,” Wilson said. “The inability to manage our Part 3 process judiciously will provide further fodder for those who question its integrity" (see 2211150083). The motion for recusal seeks Khan’s disqualification from “participating in any decisions concerning the FTC’s review of the Meta/Within transaction on due process and federal ethics grounds,” she noted. “Unfortunately, details about the Commission’s efforts to address the Motion for Disqualification remain non-public, and I cannot disclose them here. Suffice it to say that, in many circumstances, not deciding is deciding. I believe that in refusing to reach a timely decision, the Commission is relying on delay tactics rather than legal reasoning and good government.” She asked for a decision on the disqualification “without further delay,” saying she has “formulated” her opinion and is “ready to move forward with this matter.” The FTC didn’t comment.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for Northern California in Oakland signed an order Tuesday (docket 4:22-cv-04437) automatically referring all discovery matters to U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson in the class action brought against Apple by a group of French-resident iOS developers. Individual developers Figaro and L’Equipe, plus Le Geste, an association of publishers of online content and services, alleged in a first amended complaint Dec. 2 that Apple “has willfully excluded competition and usurped the market” for iOS app-distribution and in-app purchase services.

Defendant T-Mobile in the antitrust class action to overturn the carrier’s Sprint buy on antitrust grounds served notice Monday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) on the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago that it had withdrawn its Aug. 26 motion to stay the case, pending the plaintiffs’ service of the complaint on all foreign defendants. The withdrawal suggested the plaintiffs had finally served court papers on Deutsche Telekom through diplomatic channels, as was described during a status hearing in October (see 2210210032). Seven AT&T and Verizon customers brought the class action, saying the T-Mobile/Sprint transaction caused their rates to skyrocket through reduced competition in the wireless space. T-Mobile denies the allegations. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin set the next telephonic status hearing in the case for Jan. 27.

Midwest Cabinet Suppliers was excluded through an unlawful “tying agreement” from a list of Verizon-approved store fixture vendors, terminating Midwest’s supply relationship with reseller Cellular Sales of Knoxville, resulting in “significant damage” to Midwest’s sales and bottom line, alleged the cabinet maker in a first amended complaint Monday (docket 3:22-cv-00493) in U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky in Louisville. The vendors negotiated their way onto Verizon’s approved list, but Midwest was “locked out” from participating, said the complaint. Verizon leveraged its “appreciable and significant power in the market for retail store cabinets and fixtures” in the U.S. in choosing its approved vendors, it said. Verizon has more than 6,300 U.S. retail locations, and “obviously that many stores will require a significant volume of production of fixtures and installations,” it said. By restricting what entities its franchisees can buy fixtures from, Verizon is affecting “a substantial amount of volume of commerce in the market for store fixtures and installation,” it said. Midwest is “entitled to recover” from Verizon threefold the damages it sustained as a result of Verizon’s conduct, it said. Verizon didn’t comment Tuesday, but it previously said Midwest’s claims are without merit.

Thursday’s opening day of the multiday hearing on the FTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy lasted nearly five hours and admitted 18 exhibits into evidence, 15 by the FTC, three by Meta, said a minute order and hearing log (docket 5:22-cv-04325) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose (see 2212080018). The lone in-person witness to take the stand on Day One was Rade Stojsavljevic, director of Meta’s 1st Party Studios, testifying for the FTC, the hearing log shows. At one point nearing 4 p.m. PST, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila admonished individuals in the courtroom “for taking photographs, video recording and audio recording during proceedings,” said the log.

The four-day hearing that opened Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose on the injunction the FTC seeks to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy is “the most significant effort to date by the current antitrust agencies to expand antitrust powers in the digital economy,” reported New Street Research. “This is litigation that both the progressive forces pushing for more aggressive antitrust enforcement and the forces seeking to stop such enforcement have been hoping for,” it said. The progressives wanted a case that would test “novel theories of antitrust harm,” by applying antitrust law to potential competition, and preventing established big tech companies from buying up potential competitors in nascent markets, it said. Those who advocate for reining in the FTC and DOJ “have wanted a case that would enable a court to shoot down the theories and send a clear signal to antitrust agencies that traditional antitrust jurisprudence is sufficient to prevent anticompetitive behavior in digital markets,” it said.

The FTC filed suit Thursday to block Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion buy of Activision Blizzard (see 2204280041), claiming the deal would allow Microsoft to “suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.” The FTC voted 3-1 along party lines to pursue the lawsuit, with GOP Commissioner Christine Wilson the lone opponent. A copy of the FTC’s complaint wasn’t immediately available. “Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said FTC Competition Bureau Director Holly Vedova. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.” Activision “is one of only a very small number of top video game developers in the world that create and publish high-quality video games for multiple devices,” but “that could change if the deal is allowed to proceed,” the FTC said: “With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers.” Microsoft CEO Brad Smith vowed in a statement to fight the lawsuit, noting the company offered “proposed concessions” to the FTC earlier this week. Microsoft “has been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns,” he said: “While we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court.” The FTC’s action “sounds alarming, so I want to reinforce my confidence that this deal will close,” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick in a letter to employees Thursday. “The allegation that this deal is anticompetitive doesn't align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge.”

TikTok owner ByteDance asked the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose Tuesday to keep under seal the “competitively sensitive” information it provided as a nonparty to the FTC’s lawsuit to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy (see 2212040001). “Its public disclosure outweighs the public’s interest in accessing it,” said the ByteDance statement (docket 5:22-cv-04325). If confidential information on product development, business strategies and internal evaluations in Meta’s second amended exhibit list were disclosed, “ByteDance’s competitors would have an unfair advantage allowing them to replicate ByteDance’s potential business plans and circumvent the time and resources necessary to develop their own practices and strategies,” it said. Meta’s proposed redactions are “narrowly tailored to the specific portions of the list that reflect ByteDance’s highly confidential information” and therefore don’t unnecessarily limit the public’s general right to inspect public records, it said.

The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Monday docketed the appeal (docket 1:20-cv-00186) of Smart Communications that seeks to vacate the Nov. 1 memorandum of U.S. District Judge Jennifer Wilson for Middle Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, granting the motions of Global Tel-Link (GTL) and other defendants to dismiss Smart's antitrust complaint. Smart alleged competitor GTL colluded with the York County, Pennsylvania, prison and its warden, Adam Ogle, in an unlawful "exclusive dealing" arrangement when Smart tried to replace GTL as the prison's vendor for inmate calling services. The prison and Ogle were named as GTL's co-defendants. The case was listed for possible dismissal due to a “jurisdictional defect,” said the 3rd Circuit clerk in an order Monday.