Tag: Competition

The Federal Trade Commission required generic drug marketers ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Novitium Pharma LLC to divest, to Prasco LLC, ANI’s development rights to one generic drug and assets with respect to another generic drug as part of a settlement resolving charges that ANI’s $210 million acquisition of Novitium likely would be anticompetitive. According to the complaint, without a remedy, the acquisition would likely harm future competition in U.S. markets for both of these generic products. The order requires ANI and Novitium to divest ANI’s rights and assets to generic SMX-TMP oral suspension and generic dexamethasone tablets to Prasco within 10 days after the acquisition is final. On Jan. 12, 2022, the Commission announced the final consent order in this matter.

Global Partners LP and Richard Wiehl have agreed to divest to Petroleum Marketing Investment Group, LLC, seven stores that sell gasoline and diesel fuel in five local markets in Connecticut, to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that Global’s proposed acquisition of 27 retail gasoline and diesel outlets owned or operated by Wiehl violates federal antitrust laws. The complaint alleges that the acquisition will harm competition for the retail sale of gasoline in and around the Connecticut towns and cities of Fairfield, Bethel, Milford, Wilton, and Shelton. In all of these local markets except Wilton, the acquisition will also harm competition for the retail sale of diesel fuel. Under the terms of the proposed consent order, among other stipulations, Global and Wiehl must divest to Petroleum Marketing Investment Group six Global retail fuel outlets and one Wheels retail fuel outlet.

Clarence L. Werner, founder of the Omaha, Nebraska-based truckload carrier Werner Enterprises, Inc. will pay a $486,900 civil penalty to settle charges that certain of his acquisitions of company stock while he was a director of the company violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. The HSR Act requires companies and individuals to report stock purchases over a certain threshold to the FTC and DOJ and wait before closing the transaction so that the federal agencies can investigate the potential competitive impact of the acquisition. Smaller transactions may also be reportable under the Act due to the need to aggregate the new purchase with all current holdings.

To settle FTC charges that its actions violated the antitrust laws, the Board of Dental Examiners of Alabama agreed to stop requiring on-site supervision by licensed dentists of alignment scans of prospective patients’ mouths seeking to address misaligned teeth or gaps between teeth. According to the complaint, the board amended a rule to prohibit dental hygienists and other non-dentist practitioners from performing scans inside a patient’s mouth without on-site dentist supervision. The complaint alleges that the Board unreasonably excluded from competition providers of teledentistry-based teeth alignment products and services, and that it did this without adequate active supervision from neutral state officials, in violation of the FTC Act. On Dec. 21, 2021, the FTC announced the final consent agreement in this matter.

Richard Fairbank, CEO of Capital One Financial Corp., has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that his March 8, 2018, acquisition of Capital One Financial (COF) stock violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Under a negotiated settlement, Fairbank will pay a $637,950 civil penalty. The complaint alleges that in 2018,  Fairbank violated the notice and waiting period requirements of the HSR Act because he did not file before acquiring COF voting securities in excess of the $100 million filing threshold, as adjusted (which at the time was $168.8 million).