AT&T and Verizon customers seeking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy “rest” their antitrust claims against T-Mobile on “a boundless theory of causation,” said CTIA’s amicus brief Monday (docket 24-8013) in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Crown Castle appoints Steven Moskowitz, ex-Centennial Towers, president-CEO and adds him to its board; interim President-CEO Anthony Melone becomes special adviser to Moskowitz until May 31 ... Automotive tech company Luminar hires former Lyft, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon executive David Foster as executive vice president-engineering and Meta’s John Pinette as senior vice president-communications ... Xerox nominates candidates for election as new board members at May 22 annual meeting: Jabil CEO Kenny Wilson; Flowserve Chief Financial Officer Amy Schwetz; Dell Technologies Global Chief Technology Officer John Roese; Mastercard President-CTO Edward McLaughlin; former Guidewire Software President-Chief Operating Officer Priscilla Hung; former Verizon Business Group CEO-Executive Vice President Tami Erwin; and Xerox President-COO John Bruno ... Beacon Global Strategies, strategic advisory firm focused on global public policy, government procurement and geopolitical risk analysis, expands its Indo-Pacific practice, adding Meghan Harris, ex-GlobalFoundries, as senior vice president, and Ann Kowalewski, ex-House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer, as associate vice president.
The net neutrality draft order on the FCC's April 25 open meeting agenda (see 2404030043) will face much the same legal arguments as the 2015 net neutrality order did, with many of the same parties involved, we're told by legal experts and net neutrality watchers.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should grant T-Mobile’s petition for interlocutory review of the district court’s denial of its motion to dismiss the antitrust claims of seven AT&T and Verizon customers who allege their own wireless rates soared as a result of T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy (see 2404090059), said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 24-8013).
By requesting a “blanket stay of discovery,” HP seeks to bring an antitrust class action involving its ink cartridges “to a standstill,” said the plaintiffs’ memorandum Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-00164) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago in support of their opposition to HP's motion for a discovery stay. The plaintiffs contend that HP shows no good cause under Rule 26(c)(1). They cite Dickson v. Chicago Allied Warehouses in which the court found that such motions won't be granted "unless the party seeking the stay makes a strong showing why discovery should be denied.” HP challenges the adequacy of all claims in the complaint, but concerns about potential costs associated with antitrust discovery “is not tantamount to an automatic prohibition on discovery in every antitrust case where defendants challenge the sufficiency of a complaint,” said the memorandum, citing New England Carpenters Health & Welfare Fund v. Abbott Labs. Plaintiffs’ claims involve “complex antitrust law that will require detailed and thoughtful analysis,” said the filing, but the case doesn’t “'present an unusually thorny or difficult set of factual issues to be explored’ so as to make discovery abnormally burdensome or expensive,” it said. HP complains about the burdensome nature of the plaintiffs’ anticipated discovery “even though ‘the parties have not even discussed the discovery’” they intend to request, it said. “Simply put, HP has not carried its burden to overcome the general rule that discovery stays are ‘heavily disfavored.’”
ESO Solutions’ motion to strike the class allegations in a consolidated class action complaint (CCAC) involving its September data breach is “premature and meritless,” said the plaintiffs’ memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-01557) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin in opposition to ESO’s March 28 motion.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court should reverse the FCC's ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040) by interpreting the Communications Act “in accordance with its ordinary meaning,” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (Texas) and six other Republican senators wrote in an amicus brief Tuesday (docket 23-60641). The brief supports Maurine and Matthew Molak's petition to defeat the Oct. 25 declaratory ruling (see 2404030010).
The federal antitrust laws strictly limit who may bring damages claims to only those injured directly by anticompetitive behavior, said T-Mobile’s petition for interlocutory review Monday (docket 24-8013) in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Notices of appearance in In Re: Apple Inc. Smartphone Antitrust Litigation are due on or before April 17, said a text-only revised briefing schedule Friday at the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. In their briefs, parties should address what steps they have taken to pursue alternatives to centralization including engaging in informal coordination of discovery and scheduling, said the order.
NAB announces Nandu Machiraju, a former partner at Baker & McKenzie, as senior vice president-deputy general counsel … Ericsson appoints Greta Lundeberg, ex-Boeing, as vice president-head, government and policy advocacy, Americas … Allegro MicroSystems appoints Jennie Raubacher, former Wells Fargo managing director, to its board … Spotify hires Saab’s Christian Luiga, also former Telia, as chief financial officer, effective in Q3, and appoints Vice President-Financial Planning and Analysis Ben Kung as interim CFO ... Talkdesk promotes Miles Ennis to senior vice president-worldwide sales ... Digimarc hires George Karamanos, ex-Zip, as chief legal officer ... Twilio announces retirement of board member Byron Deeter before the company’s 2024 annual meeting, reducing the board’s composition to nine members.