#antitrust

#antitrust

The financial campaigner James Daley has launched a 1.5bn class action lawsuit against Apple over its mobile phone wallet, claiming the US tech company blocked competition and charged hidden fees that ultimately harmed 50 million UK consumers. The lawsuit takes aim at Apple Pay, which they say has been the only contactless payment service available for iPhone users in Britain over the past decade.

These initiatives include things like analyzing and assessing legal risks and providing members, local associations and MLSs with legal resources and the education to do the same, as well as reducing litigation exposure and working with industry partners to garner favorable legal outcomes. In its 2025 Annual Report, NAR outlined what it was doing to accomplish these initiatives. Efforts highlighted by the trade group included hiring

Epic sued Google over five years ago in August 2020, and in December 2023 a jury unanimously handed it the win. An appeals court upheld that verdict, and the US Supreme Court didn't step in to save Google from the immediate consequences. Judge Donato ordered Google to crack open Android in the United States, forcing Google to eventually host rival app stores inside its own store, among many other punishments.

The crunch moment in Google's antitrust battles with the Justice Department over its ad tech stack looms ever closer, with Justice Leonie Brinkema expected to issue her remedies ruling by the close of Q1. While these deliberations take place in the chambers of a courtroom in the Eastern District of Virginia, developments elsewhere underscore the political undercurrents at play, namely the push to limit Big Tech's power.

Alexi Technologies has filed its answer and counterclaim against Fastcase, vLex, and Clio, accusing the newly merged legal technology giant of manufacturing breach-of-contract allegations as a pretext to eliminate a competitor in the AI legal research market. In December, , sued Fastcase, now owned by ClioAlexi in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging breach of contract, trademark infringement and trade secret misappropriation, all relating to Alexi's use of data licensed from Fastcase.

Accordingly, the motion for Preliminary Injunction ... is DENIED,

"According to the investigations, there is possible anti-competitive conduct of an exclusive nature that arises from the application of the New WhatsApp Terms ("WhatsApp Business Solution Terms") imposed by Meta to regulate the access and offer, by providers of artificial intelligence tools, of its technologies to WhatsApp users," the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE) said. CADE said it would investigate if Meta's terms are exclusionary to competitors and unduly favor Meta AI, the company's chatbot that's offered on WhatsApp.

Phelps referred to Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress as an "idiot" and a "stupid redneck" who "needs to be taken out back and flogged."

The Court accepts as true all of the well-pleaded facts in the Complaint and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of Plaintiffs. So said U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama on 12.4.2025. According to Reuters: A group of companies that lease land for mobile homes has convinced a federal judge in Chicago to dismiss a proposed nationwide class action accusing them of conspiring to inflate lot rents.

Why Alphabet performed well this year Alphabet actually didn't start the year strong. However, at least two things happened that helped it reverse course. First, Alphabet posted excellent financial results. The company's work in cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) has been tremendously helpful. The tech leader is showing that, despite competition from AI chatbots, it remains the leader in search, while providing in-demand AI services through the cloud.

After the merger, The Capitol Forum's analysis showed that Compass would control 30% or more of local brokerage markets across the U.S. from Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West Coast to Boston, parts of New York City and Washington, D.C. on the East Coast. The combined brokerages would have market dominance in markets like Honolulu, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Greenwich, Connecticut, Newport Beach and Los Gatos, California, Denver, St. Louis, Houston and Austin.

How do you quantify the abuse of a company's power in its chosen industry? We're seeing one answer to that question in Italy this week, where the Italian Competition Authority has issued a fine to Apple over "abuse of a dominant position" related to the tech company's App Store. The fine that's been levied is a very specific €98,635,416.67, which translates to $116,000,725.26 at the current rate of exchange.

The goal, of course, is to avoid the abuses that can happen in monopolies and with the goal of protecting consumer choice and protecting innovation. What happened was that iRobot and Amazon came together for the expressed purpose of creating more innovation, more consumer choice, at a time when iRobot's trajectory was honestly different from where it was several years earlier.

In reversing the Southern District of New York dismissal for lack of standing, a split three-judge circuit panel allowed the streaming and satellite TV company to proceed with its federal claims. Lost profits resulting from a reduction in output represent a cognizable antitrust injury, and DirecTV plausibly alleges that its lost profits flowed directly from the output-reducing effects of the alleged price-fixing conspiracy, U.S. Circuit Judge Steven Menashi wrote in an opinion joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin.

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced plans to sell Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Studios and streaming service HBO Max to Netflix, following a bidding war that also ended with a hostile takeover bid by Paramount. The planned sale would create a mammoth streaming and production giant with intellectual property rights to beloved franchises including Batman and Harry Potter. It's also sure to draw scrutiny from antitrust enforcers at the Department of Justice (DOJ).