Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, WORTH NOTING—Other Antitrust and Trade Regulation developments, (Aug 1, 2025)

By WK Editorial Staff

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

ANTITRUST—N.D. Ill.: The federal district court in Chicago has granted final approval to a settlement with Johns Hopkins University (“Johns Hopkins”) in the elite university financial aid antitrust litigation brought university students alleging that seventeen prestigious private universities colluded through a cartel called the “568 Presidents Group” and an “illegal horizontal agreement to fix prices,” whereby tuition prices were set through common “agreed-upon formulas.” As a part of the Settlement Agreement, Johns Hopkins agreed to make a payment for the benefit of the Settlement Class of $18.5 million. The Fourth Tranche Allocation Plan was approved as fair, reasonable, and adequate and consistent with all applicable standards and due process of law. Balanced against the many significant risks and uncertainties of litigation and without the benefit of a prior government case or investigation and considering that litigation continues against five non-settling Defendants, the Settlement provided an exceptional result for the Settlement Class and supported Settlement Class Counsel’s request for attorney fees. Further, the requested attorney fees, costs, and expenses were reasonable and supported by prior fee awards. Settlement Class Counsel are awarded attorneys’ fees totaling $6,166,666.67 (representing one-third of the Settlement Fund) and costs and expenses totaling $1,220,869.56. Finally, Settlement Class Counsel’s request for service awards of $1,250 for each of the eight Class Representatives was reasonable and granted (Corzo v. Brown University, No. 1:22-cv-00125 (N.D. Ill. July 30, 2025)).

ANTITRUST—E.D. Pa.: The federal district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has denied a motion to dismiss Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp.’s (Pratt) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim an antitrust complaint brought against it and affiliates by Universal Turbine Parts, LLC (UTP). The court analyzed Pratt’s conduct under the rule of reason standard because the type of conduct that UTP alleged—exclusive dealing, bundling, refusal to deal, and supracompetitive pricing—does not fall within the narrow category of per se illegal conduct. Under the rule of reason, the illegality of an exclusive dealing arrangement depends on a finding of substantial foreclosure of competition. Here, UTP sufficiently alleged substantial foreclosure because Pratt’s alleged practices barred a substantial number of rivals and severely restricted the market’s ambit. With respect to how the alleged contractual restrictions worked to foreclosure competition, UTP’s allegations were extensive and detailed. As for antitrust injury, UTP’s allegations of substantial foreclosure were sufficient to satisfy this threshold requirement. Since UTP adequately alleged both anticompetitive conduct and antitrust injury at this early stage in the litigation, Pratt’s motion was denied (Universal Turbine Parts, LLC v. Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp., No. 2:24-cv-02021-MRP (E.D. Pa. July 30, 2025)).

ANTITRUST NEWS: The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority has recommended that the CMA Board consider designating Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) with strategic market status (SMS) in relation to their respective digital activities in cloud services. This would enable the CMA to impose targeted and bespoke interventions to address the concerns identified during its investigation, including with respect to features where there are specification risks around the design of effective market interventions. The agency’s final decision stated that market concentration and barriers to entry and expansion have enabled Microsoft and AWS to hold significant unilateral market power in the cloud services markets and to earn returns above the cost of their capital over a sustained period. The CMA investigators argued that outcomes for customers would be better if cloud markets were more competitive. These outcomes would include more consistently competitive prices, greater prevalence of switching and multi-cloud use, and potentially higher quality and innovation.

ANTITRUST NEWS: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that his office issued subpoenas to investigate whether the CDP (formerly the Climate Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) violated state consumer protection or antitrust laws by coercing companies into disclosing proprietary data and paying for access under the guise of environmental transparency.

ANTITRUST NEWS: Opera, a Norway-based browser developer, announced that it has filed a formal complaint with Brazil’s competition authority, CADE, against Microsoft. The complaint alleges that Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices, which give an unfair advantage to its Edge browser, impede free and effective consumer choice on PCs, harming the digital marketplace. Microsoft sets Edge as the exclusively pre-installed and default browser across Windows devices and deploys tactics that confuse users and make it artificially difficult for them to access and use alternative browsers. Microsoft’s tactics are unjustified, frustrating to users, and only getting more severe.

ADVERTISING—S.D. Ill.: In a putative class action brought by Plaintiff Anthony Womick against The Kroger Co. (“Kroger”) over Kroger’s advertising concerning the amount of coffee cups its products could brew, Kroger’s partial motion to dismiss was denied by the federal district court for the Southern District of Illinois. Specifically, Womick claimed that Kroger engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and similar consumer protection statutes of other states, by misrepresenting the number of cups of coffee that can be brewed from select Kroger-brand ground coffee products. Kroger argued that Womick lacked Article III standing to assert claims related to products he did not personally purchase and similarly cannot represent class members in states where he neither resides nor purchased any products. However, the court found that Womick adequately alleged Article III standing to pursue claims on behalf of the putative class with respect to the products he did not personally purchase insofar as the injuries alleged are substantially similar. Further, whether Womick may assert claims on behalf of the putative multi-state class under the consumer protection statutes of states other than Illinois raised class certification questions that are premature at the pleading stage (Womick v. The Kroger Co., No. 3:21-cv-00574-NJR (S.D. Ill. July 30, 2025)).

AI NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas), joined by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), introduced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act, the first federal proposal to ban companies from using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to set prices or wages based on Americans’ personal data. The bill would prohibit practices like an airline raising prices for an individual after seeing her search for a family obituary or a ride share app paying a driver less after seeing that she visited a pawn shop.

CONSUMER PROETCTION NEWS: Congressmen Brad Sherman (CA-32), Seth Magaziner (RI-2), and Congressman Chris Deluzio (PA-17), introduced the Click to Cancel Act in the House, while Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) introduced companion legislation in the Senate. The FTC had finalized the Negative Option Rule , which would have required sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up for the good or service in question. The Eighth Circuit recently vacated the Rule, holding it was promulgated “without observance of procedure required by law.” The bill would enshrine into law the FTC’s rule, and address increasing reports of consumers losing time and money from intentionally difficult subscription cancellation processes.

CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: The FTC announced that it has received a $14.6 million Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) grant that will enable the agency to enhance its in-house data processing and data analysis capabilities. The FTC will use the grant to develop a comprehensive cloud-based analytics platform that leverages AI tools and train staff to handle complex data analysis in-house. These new tools will enable the agency to reduce the amount of time it takes to sift through data from weeks to hours.

CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: Proposed legislation aimed at protecting the elderly from scammers and financial fraud, title the Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception (GUARD) Act, calls on the FTC and other agencies to report to Congress on amounts made available and amounts expended to address financial fraud. The legislation, sponsored by Senators Katie Britt (R., Ala.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), is a Senate companion to H.R.2978, which was introduced by Reps. Zach Nunn (R., Iowa) and Josh Gottheimer (D.N.J.).

FRANCHISING & DISTRIBUTION—D. Md.: Hotel franchisor Choice Hotels was granted its motion to transfer a case filed against it by an alleged sex trafficking victim from the federal district court in Maryland to the Middle District of Florida. The Maryland federal district court determined that the interests of justice weighed strongly in favor of transfer and the convenience of the witnesses also favored transfer where the sex trafficking actually occurred in Florida. More importantly, the court’s lack of personal jurisdiction over defendant GP4, the franchisee of the hotel where the conduct occurred, also favored transfer to Florida, where personal jurisdiction would exist over both Choice and GP4 (Doe v. Choice Hotels International, Inc., No. 8:24-cv-01598-TDC (D. Md. July 28, 2025)).

STATE UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES—E.D. Pa.: The federal district court in Philadelphia has denied CVS Health Corporation’s attempt to compel arbitration of a class action lawsuit that accuses the pharmacy giant and its subsidiaries of orchestrating a scheme to prevent Medicare Part D beneficiaries from accessing less expensive generic drugs. Because CVS failed to raise the issue of arbitrability until after engaging in litigation for over thirteen months—including motion practice and discovery—they waived their right to arbitrate. Earlier, the court ruled that the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged violations of federal racketeering law and various state consumer protection statutes (Jones v. CVS Health Corp., No. 2:24-cv-01703-JMY (E.D. Pa. July 29, 2025)).

Attorneys: Daniel John Walker (Berger Montague PC) and Devin [Velvel] Freedman (Freedman Normand Friedland LLP) for Sia Henry, Brandon Piyevsky and Michael Maerlander. Kenneth Michael Kliebard (Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP) for Brown University. Deepti Bansal (Cooley LLP) for California Institute of Technology. James L. Cooper (Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP) for University of Chicago. Jeremy D. Andersen (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP) for Universal Turbine Parts, LLC. Heather S. Nyong'o (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP) for Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp., P&WC Turbo Engines Corp. and Pratt & Whitney Canada Holdings Corp. Kevin P. Green (Goldenberg Heller & Antognoli, PC) for Anthony Womick. Bruce A. McMullen (Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC) for The Kroger Co. Robert Keith Jenner (Jenner Law, PC) and Annie McAdams (Annie McAdams PC) for Jane Doe [J.S.H.]. Christopher C. Dahl (Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz) for Choice Hotels International, Inc. Imoh Emmanuel Akpan (Goldberg Segalla, LLP) for GP4 Property Owner, LLC. Bruce P. Merenstein (Welsh & Recker, PC) for Bruce P. Merenstein. James E. Cecchi (Carella Byrne Bain Gilfillan Cecchi Stewart & Olstein, PC) for Denise Elayne Jones and Marilyn A. Manzi. Edward B. Diskant (McDermott Will & Emery LLP) for CVS Health Corp. f/k/a CVS Caremark Corp., Caremark L.L.C. f/k/a Caremark Inc., CVS Pharmacy, Inc., CVS Caremark Part D Services, LLC and SilverScript Insurance Co., LLC.

Companies: Brown University; California Institute of Technology; University of Chicago; Universal Turbine Parts, LLC; Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp.; P&WC Turbo Engines Corp.; Pratt & Whitney Canada Holdings Corp.; The Kroger Co.; Choice Hotels International, Inc.; GP4 Property Owner, LLC; CVS Health Corp. f/k/a CVS Caremark Corp.; Caremark L.L.C. f/k/a Caremark Inc.; CVS Pharmacy, Inc.; CVS Caremark Part D Services, LLC; SilverScript Insurance Co., LLC; Microsoft; Amazon Web Services; Opera

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