Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, WORTH NOTING: Other Antitrust and Trade Regulation developments, (Jul 31, 2026)

By WK Editorial Staff

A periodic roundup of other items of interest to the Antitrust and Trade Regulation community.

ANTITRUST—W.D. Wash.: The federal district court in Seattle, Washington vacated a decision on attorney fees in costs awarded in arbitration to customers of Valve Corp. because it violated due process. Thousands of consumers brought claims against Valve in arbitration. While those arbitrations were pending, Valve amended its user agreement to remove its arbitration provision, and sued to enjoin the pending arbitrations. An arbitrator found for the consumers on the merits of his antitrust claims and awarded $66.33 each in damages and $727,164.84 in attorney fees and costs. Valve appealed. The court awarded the full amount of costs and attorney fees requested, based on timesheets, billing narratives, and other supporting records. Valve no inspect and challenge the documents. The order called for briefing on entitlement in August and for the proof of amount in September, and it required that proof to include the work of writing the August briefs. Also, Valve could not contest the amount of the fees before the evidence of that amount existed. Nor could it do so afterward. The order set no deadline for objections and described no way to make them, and the arbitrator closed the hearing hours after receiving more than 900 time entries. Valve was left with no opportunity to challenge the veracity or reasonableness of those entries (Valve Corp. v. Vicente, No. 2:25-cv-01976-JNW (W.D. Wash. Jul. 28, 2026)).

ANTITRUST NEWS: The Court of Appeal ruled that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) were right to conclude that Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK charged excessive and unfair prices for hydrocortisone tablets over a decade. Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK (which took over Auden’s business in 2015) have increased prices of hydrocortisone tablets to over £70 per pack despite not additional costs or investment in the drug. Auden/Actavis also engaged in practices that delayed competition that could have brought prices down. In July 2021, the CMA found that Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK had abused a dominant position by charging excessive and unfair prices for hydrocortisone tablets between 2008 and 2018 and imposed penalties totaling £266 million. The CAT upheld the decision and penalties. The CoA dismissed the appeals against the CAT’s judgment, finding that none of their grounds of appeal ‘get near’ to displacing the CMA’s and the CAT’s conclusions on the infringements. The CoA decided that the firms’ appeals on penalties should be remitted to the CAT for reconsideration – not because it accepted the firms’ arguments, but because it found that the CAT had not properly addressed them. The firms’ appeals against the penalties will be re-heard by the CAT.

AI NEWS: The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), in partnership with students from UCLA Law School’s Information Policy Lab filed a complaint with the FTC and Attorneys General of the United States alleging that Speechify, an artificial intelligence voice-cloning platform, engages in unfair, deceptive, and abusive trade practices by making it remarkably easy for bad actors to create convincing voice impersonations with virtually no meaningful safeguards to prevent fraud. CFA's complaint alleges that Speechify's voice-cloning technology enables these scams by allowing users to create realistic voice clones from just seconds of audio while relying on little more than a self-attestation checkbox to verify consent.

AI NEWS: The European Commission (EC) announced that its AI Office, together with national authorities, will begin enforcing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act on August 2nd. The rules require certain AI systems to tell users when they are interacting with AI and when content has been generated or altered by AI. Deepfakes (images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using AI) will also have to be labelled. AI-generated or altered content will also have to carry machine-readable marks so it can be detected more easily.

CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether Microsoft Corp. failed to provide customers clear information upfront about subscription options when changes were made to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans – including adding new features such as Copilot. The CMA is looking into whether Microsoft’s communications with customers before renewal were misleading. The investigation will examine whether customers were given key information about the plans and the difference in cost to understand the options available to them before making a decision.

Attorneys: Blake Edward Marks-Dias (Corr Cronin LLP) for Valve Corp. William Burnside (Bailey Duquette PC) for Lance Vicente.

Companies: Valve Corp.; Auden Mckenzie; Actavis UK; Speechify; Microsoft, Corp.

News: Antitrust AINews ConsumerProtection WashingtonNews