ANTITRUST ALERT
ANTITRUST ALERT
A Global Resource for Compliance Officers & Legal Advisors
ANTITRUST ALERT
A Global Resource for Compliance Officers & Legal Advisors
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DOJ and SDNY US Attorney’s Office Indict Three Dealers in Foreign Currency Exchange Spot Market Conspiracy Case

by | Mar 28, 2017 | ,

A grand jury has indicted three foreign currency exchange spot market dealers for alleged violations of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, in a case brought jointly by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). The allegations in the case, United States v. Usher, et al., are that the three named defendants conspired to suppress and eliminate competition for the purchase and sale of Euro/US dollar (EUR/USD) currency pairs via price fixing and bid rigging.

The foreign currency exchange spot market (the “FX Spot Market”) enables participants to buy and sell currencies at set exchange rates. The FX Spot Market is an “over-the-counter” market conducted via direct customer-to-dealer trades, i.e., without an exchange.  In the market, currencies are traded and priced in pairs, whereby one currency is exchanged for the other.  When filling customer orders, dealers in the FX Spot Market do not serve in a broker capacity, but rather fulfill the orders via their own trading and speculation in the requested currency markets.  Dealers employ traders to quote prices and engage in trades to fill customer orders.  The dealers and their traders are able to access a separate virtual market, known as the interdealer virtual market, which enables currency trades amongst dealers.  According to the Indictment, currency pair prices are set by a continuous auction in the interdealer virtual market, where “individual actions taken by competing traders—to bid or not bid, to offer or not offer, to trade or not to trade, at certain times, and using certain tactics—can cause or contribute to a change in the exchange rate shown in the [virtual trading] interface, and thus may benefit, harm, or be neutral to a competing trader.” The Indictment asserts that this is because the benchmarks used by the virtual market were calculated at particular times each day and were based on “real-time bidding, offering, and trading activity” on the virtual trading market.

The Indictment asserts that the defendants violated the Sherman Act by:

  • engaging in chat room communications whereby they discussed customer orders, trades, names and risk positions;
  • refraining from trading against each other’s interests;
  • coordinating bids for the purpose of fixing the price of the EUR/USD pair.

Defendants are alleged to have engaged in profitable EUR/USD transactions while acting to fix prices and rig bids for the EUR/USD product in the FX Spot Market.  The Indictment further alleges that others were co-conspirators, suggesting that there may be cooperating witnesses and possibly further indictments to follow. Of note, however, recent Trump Administration changes to US Attorneys and DOJ Division Deputies and Chiefs may conceivably alter the course of this and any follow-on litigation. Regardless, over-the-counter markets have been a focus of antitrust lawsuits in recent years, most notably in the widely-covered Libor suits, and that trend is expected to continue.



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THE LATEST: DOJ Trial Machine is Staffed Up, Fired Up

by | Feb 8, 2017 |

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • The DOJ Antitrust Division scored another trial win — this time in a real estate foreclosure bid rigging case.
  • Yesterday’s win follows on the heels of Division wins in a Puerto Rico bus transportation bid rigging/fraud case (DC Office, Criminal I), enjoining of a significant merger (DC Office, Lit I), corruption prosecution of an environmental remediator (New York Office), and another real estate auction case (San Francisco Office).
WHAT THIS MEANS:
  • The Division is growing a crop of trial-ready and eager attorneys in multiple offices. They can be expected not to shy away from a courtroom challenge.


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Flurry of Antitrust Merger Enforcement Actions as Obama Presidency Comes to a Close

by | Feb 2, 2017 | , ,

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced several antitrust enforcement actions in advance of the inauguration of President Trump, including settlements for failures to file under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR Act), a challenge to an unreportable deal and a settlement of a “gun-jumping” claim under the HSR Act. These cases illustrate the importance of compliance with the often complex reporting, waiting period and substantive aspects of antitrust laws in connection with acquisitions of various types, whether or not those acquisitions require premerger reporting. Failure to comply can result in significant financial penalties.

Two HSR “Failure to File” Settlements. On January 17, 2017, the FTC announced two settlements for failures to submit HSR filings and observe the statutory waiting period under the HSR Act prior to consummating acquisitions that met the relevant thresholds. The HSR Act requires notification of certain acquisitions of voting securities, assets and non-corporate interests if the value held as result of the transaction is in excess of certain notification thresholds and size of person thresholds (if applicable), and the transaction is not otherwise exempt. Parties to reportable transactions must observe the statutory waiting period prior to closing. If they fail to file, or otherwise do not observe the waiting period under the HSR Act, the parties may be liable for civil penalties of up to $40,654 per day (which was recently increased from $40,000, effective February 24, 2017).

In the first settlement, Ahmet Okumus agreed to pay $180,000 in connection with failing to notify for his purchases of voting securities of Web.com Group, Inc. (Web.com). According to the complaint, in September 2014, Okumus acquired voting securities of Web.com and as a result, held approximately 13.5 percent of the voting securities of Web.com. Okumus continued to acquire voting securities of Web.com through November 2014. Okumus did not file an HSR notification prior to making these acquisitions, relying on the “investment only” exemption, which exempts acquisitions resulting in holdings of 10 percent or less of the issued and outstanding voting securities if the shares are held solely for the purpose of investment (see 15 U.S.C. § 18a(c)(9) and 16 C.F.R. § 802.9). However, because Okumus held in excess of 10 percent, this exemption was not applicable. In late November of 2014, Okumus made a corrective filing that allowed him to acquire additional Web.com voting securities for approximately five years, provided that the value of the voting securities he held as a result of any acquisition did not exceed the $100 million (as adjusted) notification threshold. In a letter that accompanied his corrective filing, he indicated that the failure to file was inadvertent. The FTC did not seek civil penalties in that instance.

In June of 2016, Okumus began acquiring additional voting securities of Web.com. Later that month he acquired 236,589 voting securities of Web.com, and as a result of that acquisition, Okumus held voting securities valued (per the HSR rules) in excess of the $100 million (as [...]

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DOJ Policy Updates Signal Continuity of Antitrust Program

by | Feb 1, 2017 |

This month, the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division revised its “Frequently Asked Questions About the Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program and Model Leniency Letters” (FAQs), with releases both before and after the new administration took office. The revisions serve as a signal that the continuity we have seen in previous years from the Antitrust Division is likely to continue. The changes include long-needed clarifications and updates since the release of the FAQs in 2008.

Read the full article.



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Antitrust M&A Snapshot: October – December 2016 Update

by , and | Jan 30, 2017 | , , , , ,

McDermott’s Antitrust M&A Snapshot is a resource for in-house counsel and others who deal with antitrust M&A issues but are not faced with these issues on a daily basis. In each quarterly issue, we will provide concise summaries of Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and European Commission (EC) news and events related to M&A, including significant ongoing investigations, trials and consent orders, as well as analysis on the trends we see developing in the antitrust review process.

Read the full report here.

 



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DOJ and FTC Release New Antitrust Guidelines for International Enforcement and Cooperation

by and | Jan 20, 2017 | ,

On Friday, January 13, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released the new Antitrust Guidelines for International Enforcement and Cooperation. These guidelines were jointly developed by the agencies and serve to update the Antitrust Enforcement Guidelines for International Operations that have been in place since April 1995. The new guidelines include a revised discussion on conduct involving foreign commerce, a new chapter on international cooperation, and updated language, case law, and illustrative examples throughout.

Read the full article here.



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FTC and DOJ Update Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property

by and | Jan 18, 2017 | , ,

On January 13, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued updated Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property (the Guidelines). The revised Guidelines follow nearly half a year of consideration and public commentary. According to the FTC, the updates were “intended to modernize the IP Licensing Guidelines without changing the agencies’ enforcement approach with respect to intellectual property licensing or expanding the IP Licensing Guidelines to address other topics.” In that vein, the modest updates to the Guidelines affirm that the antitrust agencies still believe that IP issues do not require an altered analysis and that the licensing of intellectual property is generally procompetitive.”

Read the full article here.



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Aerospace and Defense Series: Trump Administration—Potential for Increased Antitrust Leniency for Vertical Transactions in the Defense Industry

by and | Dec 1, 2016 | ,

President-elect Donald Trump has called for a dramatic increase in defense spending including purchases of new ships and warplanes as well as the addition of tens of thousands of new troops. This increase in spending generally bodes well for the aerospace and defense industry and potentially signals a new era of growth for companies in this space. This article examines how M&A transactions are likely to be reviewed in a Trump administration, with particular focus on “vertical” transactions.

Read “Trump Administration—Potential for Increased Antitrust Leniency for Vertical Transactions in the Defense Industry”



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Antitrust M&A Snapshot: July – September 2016 Update

by | Oct 31, 2016 | , ,

UNITED STATES:

Continuing an active first half of 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and US Department of Justice (DOJ) have challenged several large mergers and acquisitions. In fact, trials for the two national health insurer deals are slated to begin Q4 of 2016 in Washington, DC, where the agencies have had success in obtaining preliminary injunctions this year. Adding to the regulators’ successes in Q3 was a victory for the FTC on appeal in the Penn State Hershey Medical Center/PinnacleHealth System transaction, in which the Third Circuit overturned the district court’s formulation of the geographic market. Indeed, with another appeal in a hospital merger outstanding in the Seventh Circuit, Health Care M&A is an active sector to monitor.

In addition to the agencies’ operations, the upcoming US presidential election has also propelled antitrust policy into a national discussion. For the first time in a few decades, antitrust has appeared on the Democratic Party’s platform, and Hillary Clinton has also issued a statement promising to strengthen antitrust enforcement if elected president.

EUROPEAN UNION:

The July to September period has seen 87 merger control notifications, the vast majority being candidate cases for simplified procedure. There were also eight clearance decisions, five of which were Phase I cases with remedies—in each case, structural remedies were preferred by the European Commission (EC).

Antitrust intervention seems to have been focused more on the telecoms and pharmaceutical sectors, with divestitures being offered in every telecom and pharma Phase I and Phase II clearance decision since July.

Read the full article here.



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DOJ, FTC Issue Antitrust Guidance to Human Resources Professionals

by , and | Oct 25, 2016 | , , ,

On October 20, 2016, the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued joint Antitrust Guidance to Human Resource (HR) Professionals (the Guidance) involved in hiring and compensation decisions. The agencies issued the guidance to educate HR professionals about how the antitrust laws apply in the employment context. 

Read the full article here.



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