Tag: Competition

Australian chemical company Nufarm Limited agreed to sell certain assets and modify some of its business agreements to settle charges that its 2008 acquisition of rival A.H. Marks Holding Limited hurt competition in the U.S. market for three herbicides that are relied upon by farmers, landscapers, and consumers. Under the settlement, Nufarm will sell rights and assets associated with two of the herbicides to competitors and will modify agreements with two other companies to allow them to fully compete in the market for the other herbicide. Nufarm’s acquisition of United Kingdom-based A.H. Marks gave Nufarm monopolies in the U.S. markets for two herbicides called MCPA and MCPP-P, which also are known as phenoxy herbicides. The transaction also left only two competitors in the market for a third phenoxy herbicide, called 2,4DB. The three herbicides are widely used in the turf, lawn care, and agriculture industries to eliminate certain weeds safely and cheaply.

The FTC issued an administrative complaint on 5/7/2010 challenging The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation February 2009 acquisition of Quality Education Data (QED) and alleging that the deal hurt consumers by eliminating nearly all competition in the market for kindergarten through twelfth-grade educational marketing databases. The data sold by these companies is used to sell books, education materials, and other products to teachers and other educators nationwide. The combination of the two companies gave Dun & Bradstreet, through its subsidiary Market Data Retrieval (MDR), more than 90 percent of the market for K-12 educational marketing data. Dun & Bradstreet acquired QED from Scholastic, Inc. for about $29 million, which was below the threshold amount that would have required the companies to notify U.S. antitrust authorities before finalizing the deal.

The Commission issued an administrative complaint challenging Carilion Clinic’s 2008 acquisition of two competing outpatient clinics in the Roanoke, Virginia, area. The complaint alleges that Carilion’s acquisition of these outpatient centers eliminated competition for patients in the Roanoke area.  On October 7, 2009 Carillion agreed to sell two independent outpatient medical clinics it acquired last year to settle the charges.

Solvay settled antitrust concerns stemming from its proposed acquisition of Ausimont S.p.A. from Italenergia S.p.A., and agreed to divest its U.S. polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) operations and its interest in Alventia LLC, a joint venture which manufactures the main raw material for PVDF. According to the complaint, the proposed acquisition would lessen competition in two markets: the production and sale of all grades of PVDF; and the production and sale of melt-processible grades of PVDF.

U-Haul International, Inc. and its parent company settled FTC charges that they violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by inviting U-Haul’s closest competitor, Avis Budget Group, Inc., to collude on prices for truck rentals. U-Haul and Budget control more than 70 percent of the “do-it-yourself” one-way truck rental business in the United States. The FTC’s complaint alleges that on several occasions between 2006 and 2008, U-Haul tried to increase rates for one-way truck rentals by privately and publicly communicating with Budget, the second-largest truck rental company in the United States. The proposed settlement order against U-Haul and its parent company AMERCO bars them from inviting a competitor to divide markets, allocate customers, or fix prices, as well as participating in, maintaining, organizing, implementing, enforcing, offering, or soliciting any other company to engage in such conduct.