#antitrust

#antitrust

"Mehta, who found that Google has monopolized search and search advertising, is crafting a remedy to resolve the company's illegal conduct. In a decision last month, he ruled that Google could no longer pay companies to exclusively use its Search, Chrome web browser or Google Play Store, though he declined to bar all payments outright. Mehta's ruling incorporated aspects of proposals from Google and the Justice Department, which led to Wednesday's hearing where both sides argued for him to adopt their language in a final order."

The lawsuit centers on two Optimal Blue tools launched in 2019, Competitive Analytics and Competitive Data License, which require lenders to share an unprecedented quantity and quality of non-public, competitively sensitive, granular, real-time data covering every component of their residential Mortgage Pricing and profit margins. Plaintiffs allege this data-sharing arrangement the price of admission to this cartel allowed lenders to coordinate pricing rather than compete, effectively inflating rates and margins.

Germany's Federal Cartel Office on Wednesday announced an investigation into Chinese e-commerce giant Temu, saying it wanted to examine conditions for traders and the company's treatment of the suppliers it relies upon to sell products. "Each month more than 100 million users from European marketplaces visit temu.com," Andreas Mundt, the president of the competition watchdog, said in a statement.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, scored a legal victory Tuesday when a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit accusing the Menlo Park tech firm of misleading users about its privacy practices to maintain its social media dominance. U.S. District Judge James Donato granted Meta's request for a summary judgment halting a trial that had been scheduled for November, according to Reuters. The ruling came after the court barred a key expert witness for the plaintiffs, effectively leaving them unable to demonstrate any damages.

Like the FTC's suit, this lawsuit alleges that Zillow has no interest in continuing to compete with Redfin on the merits of its rental advertising offering. Instead, on February 6, 2025, Zillow and Redfin executed an unlawful agreement to remove competition from this already highly concentrated market, starting with a $100 million payment to Redfin to exit the Internet Listing Services advertising market, the complaint states.

The European Commission said it had carried out surprise inspections of a company active in the vaccines sector. It did not name the firm, nor say in which country the raids were taking place, though it specified investigators were joined by competition authorities of the member state affected. The European Commission said it has "concerns that the inspected company may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit abuses of a dominant market position".

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing Zillow and Redfin, accusing the real estate companies of entering what the regulator says is an illegal deal to suppress competition in online rental advertising. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the FTC alleges that this agreement started in February - when Zillow paid Redfin $100 million. In exchange for that and other compensation, the commission said, Redfin agreed to end contracts with advertising partners, stop competing ads for multifamily properties

Videogame giant Electronic Arts will be closing a deal for the largest buyout of all time, valued at around $55bn (£40.91). Investors include private-equity firm Silver Lake, and Saudi Arabia's Private Investment Fund, among others. The transaction is slated to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Under the agreement, Electronic Arts shareholders will receive USD$210 (£156) per share in cash, a 25% premium on the stock's closing price on 25th September.

According to insiders, Brussels is working on its first fine under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This is the law that has been in place since last year to prevent large tech companies from abusing their market power. A decision is expected in the coming months. That's what Reuters reports. Earlier this month, Europe already slapped Google with a €2.95 billion fine for unfair practices in advertising technology.

Amazon has agreed to settle a landmark case over its Prime membership program, according to U.S. regulators, who had alleged the company's web designs manipulated tens of millions of people into paying for subscriptions that were purposefully hard to cancel. The Federal Trade Commission says Amazon, without admitting wrongdoing, has agreed to pay a historic $1 billion in civil penalties to the government and another $1.5 billion in redress payments to affected consumers.

Google is like a dog with a bone over Microsoft's cloud licensing policies, not letting Euro regulators forget about what it sees as anti-competitive practices that penalize those wanting to run Windows software on rival cloud platforms. The ad and cloud tech giant says it has been a year since it filed a formal complaint with the European Commission about Microsoft, and seems frustrated with the progress - or lack of it.

The lawsuit is Google's second such test this year after the California-based tech juggernaut saw a similar government demand to split up its empire shot down by a judge earlier this month. Monday's case focuses specifically on Google's ad tech "stack" -- the tools that website publishers use to sell ads and that advertisers use to buy them.