Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, WORTH NOTING—Other Antitrust and Trade Regulation developments, (Feb 25, 2015)

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

ANTITRUST NEWS: An Australian federal court dismissed The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s antitrust suit against Pfizer Australia. The ACCC alleged that Pfizer offered significant discounts and the payment of rebates previously accrued on sales of Pfizer’s Lipitor, conditional on pharmacies acquiring a minimum volume of up to 75% of 12 months’ supply of Pfizer’s generic atorvastatin product. Although Pfizer took advantage of its market power by engaging in the alleged conduct, Pfizer’s market power was no longer “substantial” at the time the offers were made in January 2012. Also, the ACCC failed to establish that Pfizer had pursued its conduct for the proscribed purpose of deterring or preventing competitors from engaging in competitive conduct or for the purpose of substantially lessening competition.

CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: The Attorneys General of Illinois, Indiana, New York, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah have expressed their opposition to proposed changes sought by the banking industry to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991. Under the TCPA, state attorneys general are empowered to enforce violations against their state's consumers. The proposed changes would create an exception that would allow automated calls and messaging to alert consumers of fraudulent activity on their accounts, and would limit liability for any automated calls to cell phones unless it could be proven that the company intended to call a consumer who had not given prior consent. The Attorneys General believe that the proposed changes would lead to more robocalls directed to cell phones and that the proposed exceptions could increase the difficulty in prosecuting violations of the law.

CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: Speaking at the American Financial Services Association’s 2015 Installment Lending Summit, FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright discussed comments he issued to the Department of Defense (DoD) on the economic impact of regulations restricting the availability of consumer credit and his concerns with some of the suggested amendments. The DoD proposed amendments to its regulation implementing the Military Lending Act, and sought public comment. Commissioner Wright felt that the FTC staff’s comment did not adequately integrate the economic evidence exploring the impact of restricting access to consumer credit on consumers into its analysis of the proposed changes and submitted his own comments. Commissioner Wright also provided a brief critique of the Consumer Financial Protection Board comment on the DoD proposal.

News: Antitrust ConsumerProtection FederalTradeCommissionNews