Announced Actions for December 3, 1996

Commission action regarding applications for prior approval: Following a public comment period, the FTC has ruled on applications from the following:

• The Commission has approved the application of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain and its subsidiary, The Corborundum Company, of Worcester, Massachusetts, to grant a perpetual license for proprietary Corborundum technology used in the production of Silicon Carbide Refractory Bricks to New Castle Refractories Company, of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Under the licensing agreement, Carborundum will provide New Castle the option to purchase certain manufacturing equipment and will supply New Castle for resale with brick products produced at Carborundum’s Keasbey, New Jersey, facility. The licensing is one of several requirements in a consent agreement Saint- Gobain signed to settle FTC charges that its acquisition of Carborundum violated antitrust laws by substantially reducing competition in markets for three products used in industrial furnaces and home appliances. (See Feb. 26, 1996 news release for additional information about the consent agreement; Docket No. C-3673)

Applications for approval of transactions: The FTC has received an application for approval for a transaction from the following. The FTC is seeking public comments on the application for 30 days, until Jan. 2.

• Red Apple Companies, Inc., Sloan’s Supermarkets, Inc., (a/k/a/ Designcraft Industries, Inc.), and John Catsimatidis, the Chairman of Red Apple, and Supermarket Acquisition Corporation have applied for approval to divest a supermarket at 145 East 92nd Street, New York, N.Y., to White Rose Food, an independent wholesale food distributor in the New York City metropolitan area. Under an agreement between Red Apple and White Rose, White Rose will sell the store to Nelson Diaz, operating as Pioneer Supermarket. Divestiture of the supermarket is required under a 1995 order settling charges that Red Apple’s acquisition of Sloan’s Supermarkets substantially lessened supermarket competition in four Manhattan markets in violation of federal antitrust laws. The divestiture is intended to restore supermarket competition in the Upper East Side market. (See Dec. 13, 1994 news release for more details regarding the order; Docket No. 9266)

Copies of the documents referenced above are available on the Internet at the FTC’s World Wide Web site at: http//www.ftc.gov (no period). FTC news releases and other documents also are available from the FTC’s Public Reference Branch, 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. To find out the latest news as it is announced, call the FTC NewsPhone recording at 202-326-2710.