Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

Finalizing an order prohibiting Mobilewalla from unlawfully tracking and selling sensitive location data from users.

In November 2022, the FTC filed a complaint in court seeing civil penalties against California-based Precision Patient Outcomes, Inc. and the company’s CEO Margrett Priest Lewis for marketing an over-the-counter dietary supplement containing nothing more than vitamins, zinc, and a flavonoid as an effective treatment to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. In February 2024, the FTC announced an order settling its allegations that bars the defendants from the alleged deceptive practices.

The Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint and authorized a suit in federal court, to block Hackensack Meridian Health, Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Englewood Healthcare Foundation. The complaint alleges that the merged healthcare system would control three of the six inpatient general acute care hospitals in Bergen County, New Jersey. The proposed acquisition would eliminate close competition between Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood in Bergen County and leave insurers with few alternatives for inpatient general acute care services, which encompass a broad range of inpatient medical and surgical diagnostic and treatment services that require an overnight hospital stay. On Aug. 4, 2021, the FTC obtained a preliminary injunction halting the acquisition while the administrative trial is underway. On March 22, 2022, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the preliminary injunction. The administrative trial is scheduled to begin on April 22, 2022.

The Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint and authorized a suit in federal court, to block Hackensack Meridian Health, Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Englewood Healthcare Foundation. The complaint alleges that the merged healthcare system would control three of the six inpatient general acute care hospitals in Bergen County, New Jersey. The proposed acquisition would eliminate close competition between Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood in Bergen County and leave insurers with few alternatives for inpatient general acute care services, which encompass a broad range of inpatient medical and surgical diagnostic and treatment services that require an overnight hospital stay. The administrative trial will begin 30 days after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the appeal of the Preliminary Injunction.

The FTC filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop a dietary supplement marketer from making misleading claims that its product can help treat and even cure people who are addicted to opiates, including prescription pain medications and illegal drugs such as heroin.

Private attorneys in Clark County, Washington who provide criminal legal services for indigent defendants under a county contract settled charges that they illegally entered into an agreement known as the “Indigent Defense Bar Consortium Contract” to collectively demand higher fees for certain types of cases and refuse to accept specific additional cases unless the Clark County complied with their demands. The county was forced to substantially increase the reimbursement rate for each of the case categories specified in the Consortium Contract. According to the Commission, the conduct of the attorneys was identical to the boycott staged by criminal defense attorneys in Washington, DC which was ruled to be price fixing by the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association. Robert Lewis, James Sowder, Gerald Wear, and Joel R. Yoseph, the four attorneys who led the activities and served as the representatives of the 43 attorneys who signed the Consortium Contract, were named in the complaint and in the consent order.

Two separate consent orders settle antitrust concerns stemming from acquisitions by the Loewen Group of certain funeral homes and cemeteries that substantially reduced competition in Brownsville and Harlingen/San Benito, Texas, and in Castlewood, Virgina.  The orders require Loewen to divest properties in the three local markets to restore competition.

Order settles charges that the acquisition of National Medical Care, Inc. would combine two significant producers of HD concentrate used in hemodialysis treatment. The order requires the divestiture of the Lewisberry, Pennsylvania hemodialysis concentrate plant to Di-Chem, Inc. or other Commission-approved buyer.