Tag: Nonmerger

The largest U.S. supplier of diagnostic testing products used by small animal veterinarians, IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., agreed to drop its exclusive-dealing arrangements with a top distributor, resolving FTC charges that it was using the exclusive arrangements to stifle competition. IDEXX has agreed to a settlement order that prohibits concurrent exclusive distribution arrangements with the three national distributors of point-of-care (POC) diagnostic testing products. According to the FTC’s complaint, IDEXX has used its dominant market power to reduce competition by threatening to drop the distributors if they carried other companies’ products that compete with IDEXX products.

A Puerto Rican cooperative of pharmacy owners, Cooperativa de Farmacias Puertorriqueñas, known as "Coopharma," agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it harmed competition by negotiating, entering into, and implementing agreements among its member pharmacies to fix prices on which they contract with insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. In settling the charges, Coopharma has agreed not to engage in such conduct in the future.

The FTC filed separate complaints against the three largest U.S. suppliers of ductile iron pipe fittings, which are used in municipal water systems around the United States. The FTC charged that the three companies, McWane, Inc., Star Pipe Products, Ltd., and Sigma Corporation, illegally conspired to set and maintain prices for pipe fittings, and that McWane illegally maintained its monopoly power in the market for U.S.-made pipe fittings by implementing an exclusive dealing policy. Sigma settled the FTC's charges prior to litigation (final order dated Feb. 27, 2012); Star settled soon after (final order dated May 8, 2012).  The complaint against McWane was heard before an administrative law judge and later appealed to the Commission; see Docket No. 9351.

Pool Corporation, the largest distributor of swimming pool products in the United States, agreed to stop anticompetitive tactics that it allegedly used to keep out new competitors in local markets around the nation, as part of a settlement that resolves charges that the conduct maintained PoolCorp's monopoly over distribution of pool products. PoolCorp distributes products used in the construction, renovation, repair, service, and maintenance of residential and commercial swimming pools. The FTC charged that for the past eight years, PoolCorp, based in Covington, Louisiana, threatened not to sell the pool products of any manufacturer who sold products to a new distributor, effectively thwarting entry by new competitors by blocking them from buying pool products directly from manufacturers. The strategy significantly raised the costs incurred by its rivals, thereby lowering sales, increasing prices, and reducing the number of choices available to consumers, the agency alleged.

An association representing 900 physicians in the Amarillo, Texas, area agreed to a Commission order barring it from jointly negotiating the prices it charges insurance providers. The FTC alleged in a complaint filed with the order that the association, Southwest Health Alliances, Inc., d/b/a BSA Provider Network, has violated federal law since 2000 by fixing the prices its member doctors would charge insurers. The Commission's order requires the association to cease and desist.