Tag: Competition

In October of 2008, the Commission issued a consent order to settle charges that Golf Galaxy, a subsidiary of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., entered into an illegal agreement with Golf Canada to allocate the market for golf merchandise in the United States and Canada. The agreement barred Golf Canada from opening stores in the United States in exchange for privileged business information from Golf Galaxy, including blueprints, merchandising plans, and sales reports. The Commission’s consent order prevents Golf Galaxy from further dividing or allocating the market, and rendered its 2004 non-compete agreement with Golf Canada unenforceable.

In August 2006, the FTC approved a final consent order relating to the proposed $14.4 billion acquisition of the BOC Group by Linde requiring Linde to divest Air Separation Units (ASUs), bulk refined helium assets, and other assets in eight localities across the United States. The consent order aims to maintain competition in the markets for liquid oxygen, liquid helium, and bulk refined helium in several U.S. markets.

The Commission charged that Agrium, Inc.’s $2.65 billion proposed acquisition of UAP Holding Corporation would substantially lessen competition in the market for the retail sale of bulk fertilizer and, in some cases, related services by farm stores, in several local markets in Michigan and Maryland. The Commission’s order requires the divestiture of seven farm stores, five UAP stores in Michigan, and two Agrium locations on the eastern shore of Maryland.

The Commission challenged Fresenius Medical Care’s proposed purchase of an exclusive sublicense for the manufacture and supply of the drug Venofer to US dialysis clinics from Daiichi Sankyo Company. Venofer is an intravenously administered iron sucrose preparation used primarily to treat iron-deficiency anemia in dialysis patients with chronic kidney disease. The agreement would have given Fresenius, the largest operator of dialysis clinics in the country, the ability to artificially inflate its internal costs for Venofer, and effectively increase Medicare reimbursement payments for all buyers of the drug. In order to settle these concerns about anticompetitive self-dealing, the Commission issued a consent order restricting Fresenius from reporting internally inflated Venofer prices by mandating that the current market price for the drug be used in reporting the average selling price to Medicare.