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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.
A consent order allowed GenCorp Inc. to acquire Atlantic Research Corporation while requiring the divestiture of Atlantic’s in-space liquid propulsion business within six months of consummating the transaction. According to the complaint issued with the consent order, the transaction as originally planned would have lessened competition in the United States in four different types of in-space propulsion engines: monopropellant thrusters; bipropellant apogee thrusters; dual mode apogee thrusters; and biopropellant attitude control thrusters.
The consent order, designed to preserve competition in the market for the manufacture and sale of mobile radio frequency automatic meter reading technologies for electric utilities in the United States, permitted Itron's $255 million acquisition of Schlumberger Electricity, Inc. The consent order requires Itron to grant a royalty-free, perpetual, and irrevocable license to Hunt Technologies, Inc., creating an effective competitor in this market that allows utility companies and others to gather electric consumption data automatically and remotely from electricity meters.
A Roswell, New Mexico physicians’ association, Southeastern New Mexico Physicians IPA, settled charges that it and two of its employees entered into collective agreements among physician members on fees and refused to deal with health plans that did not accept the collective agreed-upon terms. According to the complaint, these practices increased the price of health care in the Roswell area. The consent order prohibits the IPA and its employees named in the consent from orchestrating agreements between physicians to negotiate with health insurance plans on behalf of any physician and deal or refuse to deal individually with any third party payer.