Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

In their complaint against Madera Merchant Services and B&P Enterprises, the Federal Trade Commission and the Ohio Attorney General allege that the companies generated and processed remotely created payment orders (RCPOs) or checks that allowed many unscrupulous merchants, including deceptive telemarketing schemes, to withdraw money from their victims’ bank accounts. The FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rules (TSR) specifically prohibits the use of RCPOs in connection with telemarketing sales. The court issued temporary restraining orders against Madera Merchant Services and B&P Enterprises, halting their operations and freezing their assets. The defendants and the FTC have agreed to a stipulated Preliminary Injunction in this matter. The defendants agreed to a settlement with the FTC in 2020 that permanently banned them from payment processing.

The FTC required Grifols, S.A., a manufacturer of plasma-derived drugs, to make significant divestitures as part of a settlement allowing Grifols to acquire a leading plasma-derived drug manufacturer, Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. It resolves FTC charges that Grifols’ proposed acquisition of Talecris would be anticompetitive and would violate federal antitrust laws. As part of the settlement, Grifols will sell the Talecris fractionation facility in Melville, New York, and Grifols’ plasma collection centers in Mobile, Alabama, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Kedrion S.p.A. Kedrion is a manufacturer of plasma-derived products in Europe and other markets, and will be a new entrant in the U.S. plasma-derived products industry. Grifols also will manufacture three plasma-derived products for Kedrion for several years under a manufacturing agreement. The FTC approved a final order on July 22, 2011.

Two Internet resellers of UPC barcodes used by retailers for price scanning and inventory purposes, have settled charges that they violated the FTC Act by inviting competitors to join in a collusive scheme to raise the prices charged for barcodes sold online. In separate complaints, the FTC charged that InstantUPCCodes.com and its principal, Jacob J. Alifraghis, and 680 Digital, Inc., d/b/a Nationwide Barcode and its principal, Philip B. Peretz violated the FTC Act by inviting competitors to collude to raise prices for barcodes sold over the Internet. The Commission charges Instant and Nationwide with inviting an agreement to raise prices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. The FTC has not alleged, however, that the invitations to collude resulted in an agreement on price or other terms of competition. The proposed orders setting the complaints against Instant and Nationwide and their respective principals are designed to remedy the anticompetitive conduct. Specifically, the proposed orders bar Instant and Nationwide from communicating with their competitors about barcode rates or prices; entering into, participating in, maintaining, organizing, implementing, enforcing, inviting, offering, or soliciting an agreement with any competitor to divide markets, allocate consumers, or fix prices; and urging any competitor to raise, fix, or maintain price or to limit or reduce the terms or levels of service they provide.

The FTC authorized a lawsuit to block CSL Limited’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corporation, charging that the deal would would substantially reduce competition in the U.S. markets for four plasma-derivative protein therapies – Immune globulin (Ig), Albumin, Rho-D, and Alpha-1. These therapies are used to treat patients suffering from illnesses such as primary immunodeficiency diseases, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, alpha-1 antitrypsin disease, and hemolytic disease of the newborn. In approving the administrative complaint seeking to block the deal, the Commission also authorized the staff to seek a preliminary injunction in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to stop the transaction pending completion of the administrative trial.  Following the FTC's lawsuit to block the transaction, CSL Limited announced that it would not proceed with its proposed acquisition.

The Commission authorized staff to seek a preliminary injunction to block the proposed acquisition of Claussen Pickle Company by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Equity Fund V L.P., the owner of Vlasic Pickle Company on grounds that the transaction would combine the dominant firm in the market for refrigerated pickles (Claussen) with its most significant competitor in refrigerated pickles (Vlasic). Six days after the complaint was filed in federal district court, the parties abandoned the transaction.

The consent order permits the merger of Philip Monis and Nabisco Holdings Corporation while settling charges that the merger of the two food companies would reduce competition in the already highly-concentrated food product markets. Under terms of the order, the parties are required to divest Nabisco's dry- mix gelatin, dry-mix pudding, no-bake dessert, and baking powder assets to The Jet Sea Company and Nabisco's intense mints assets to Hershey Foods Corporation.