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Every year the FTC brings hundreds of cases against individuals and companies for violating consumer protection and competition laws that the agency enforces. These cases can involve fraud, scams, identity theft, false advertising, privacy violations, anti-competitive behavior and more. The Legal Library has detailed information about cases we have brought in federal court or through our internal administrative process, called an adjudicative proceeding.
The FTC required CoStar Group, the largest provider of commercial real estate information services in the United States, to sell LoopNet's ownership interest in Xceligent, under an order settling charges that CoStar's $860 million acquisition of LoopNet would be anticompetitive. The FTC's complaint alleges the proposed acquisition would reduce competition in the markets for real estate listings databases and information services. The modified final order resolving the charges preserves competition that otherwise would have been lost through the acquisition by requiring the combined firm to sell LoopNet's interest in Xceligent, a significant provider of U.S. commercial real estate information.
Koninklijke Ahold N.V., the parent company of Giant Food Stores, LLC, agreed to sell a supermarket outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to settle charges that its proposed acquisition of the Genuardi's supermarket chain from Safeway Inc. otherwise would be anticompetitive. The transaction, if completed, would eliminate competition between Giant and Genuardi's. To preserve competition in the local grocery market, the consent order requires Ahold to sell a supermarket in Newtown, Pennsylvania to McCaffrey's supermarkets.
The FTC required Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to sell its system for surgically treating serious wrist fractures, resolving charges that J&J's proposed $21.3 billion acquisition of Synthes, Inc. would illegally reduce competition for these systems. J&J intends to sell its system, known as DVR, along with the rest of its product line for treating traumatic injuries, to Biomet, Inc. According to the FTC's complaint, J&J's proposed acquisition of Synthes would harm competition in the U.S. market for volar distal radius plating systems, internal devices that are surgically implanted on the underside of the wrist to achieve proper alignment of the radius bone following a fracture.
