Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

Under a settlement with th FTC, Mylan, Inc., and Agila Specialties Global Pte. Ltd and Agila Specialties Pvt. Ltd. (collectively, Agila)  divested 11 generic injectable drugs as a condition of allowing Mylan’s proposed acquisition of Agila from Strides Arcolab Ltd. (Strides). According to the complaint, in each of these 11 markets, Mylan and Agila are two of only a limited number of current or likely future competitors. The number of suppliers in generic pharmaceutical markets matters because prices generally decrease as the number of competing generic suppliers increases. In addition, the injectable generic products of concern are highly susceptible to supply disruptions caused by the inherent difficulties of producing sterile liquid drugs.

The FTC challenged Ardagh Group, S.A.’s proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., alleging that it will reduce competition and result in the two firms – the merged firm and its only remaining significant competitor, Owens-Illinois – controlling in excess of 75 percent of the U.S. markets for glass containers for beer and spirits customers, resulting in higher prices for those customers. The FTC issued an administrative complaint against the two companies, alleging that the acquisition would violate U.S. antitrust law. The proposed acquisition would combine the second-largest manufacturer of glass containers (Saint-Gobain) and the third-largest (Ardagh).The complaint alleges that glass container competitors possess a wealth of information about each other and the glass container industry, and that reducing the number of major competitors from three to two will make it substantially easier for the remaining two competitors to coordinate with one another to achieve supracompetitive prices or other anticompetitive outcomes. The Commission also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in federal court to preserve the status quo pending the outcome of the administrative trial on the merits.  On 11/3/13, the parties stipulated to a hold separate order in the federal court proceeding.   On 11/8/13 the Commission stayed the part 3 litigation pending settlement discussions. On 4/10/14, Ardagh Group SA agreed to sell six of its nine glass container manufacturing plants in the United States to settle the FTC's charges. The FTC’s settlement order requires Ardagh to sell six of the manufacturing plants and related assets it acquired through its 2012 acquisition of Anchor Glass Container Corporation, along with Anchor’s former corporate headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

On 4/8/2013, Bosley, Inc., the nation’s largest manager of medical/surgical hair restoration procedures, settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally exchanged competitively sensitive, nonpublic information about its business practices with one of its competitors, HC (USA), Inc., commonly known as Hair Club, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. In settling the FTC’s charges, Bosley has agreed not to communicate such information in the future, and will institute an antitrust compliance program. The FTC alleged that for at least the past four years, Bosley exchanged competitively sensitive, nonpublic information about its business operations with Hair Club. The information exchanged by the companies’ CEOs included details about future product offerings, surgical hair transplantation price floors and discounts, plans for business expansion and contraction, and current business operations and performance.

The FTC required Western Digital Corporation to sell assets used to manufacture and sell desktop hard disk drives to Toshiba Corporation as part of a proposed settlement that resolves charges that Western Digital's proposed acquisition of rival Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Ltd. would likely have harmed competition in the market for desktop hard disk drives used in personal computers. The proposed FTC order settles charges that the deal as originally proposed would have left only two companies, Western Digital and Seagate Technology LLC, in control of the entire worldwide market for desktop hard disk drives.

Renown Health agreed to settle charges that its acquisitions of two local cardiology groups reduced competition for the provision of adult cardiology services in the Reno area. Renown Health, based in Reno, Nevada, operates general acute care hospitals and commercial health plans serving the Reno area. Before the acquisitions, virtually all of the cardiologists in the Reno area were affiliated with two medical groups – Sierra Nevada Cardiology Associates and Reno Heart Physicians.To settle the charges, Renown Health will release its staff cardiologists from "non-compete" contract clauses, allowing up to 10 of them to join competing cardiology practices.