Posts Tagged ‘antitrust’
Greystar’s AI Antitrust Settlement
Anyone looking for insights into algorithmic misconduct arising from a company’s use of artificial intelligence may want to look at the apartment industry this week. The Justice Department just settled an antitrust case with the nation’s largest landlord that offers us a few points to ponder. The settlement was announced last Friday between the Justice…
Read MoreAntitrust Whistleblower Program Launched
Another week, another whistleblower rewards program announced by the U.S. federal government. This time it’s the Antitrust Division at the Justice Department, which just launched its first-ever rewards program to dig up allegations of procurement fraud, price fixing, market allocation, and similar misconduct. The Division announced the rewards program on Tuesday in conjunction with the…
Read MoreGoogle Promises Compliance Overhaul
Google has agreed to spend $500 million over the next decade to overhaul its compliance operations, including a new board-level committee dedicated to regulatory compliance and multiple new compliance teams embedded across the 184,000-person enterprise. Google made that sweeping promise to settle a lawsuit from unhappy shareholders, who had sued the company for its numerous…
Read MoreA Final Burst of Antitrust Guidance
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have published new guidelines on how prosecutors will evaluate companies’ employment agreements, information-sharing arrangements, and other practices that might violate antitrust law, even as the Biden Administration glides out the door. The two agencies released the guidelines (a slim 13 pages long) on Thursday. The guidelines review the…
Read MoreUpdates on Antitrust Leniency Program
Useful news for anyone working at a company involved in an illegal cartel or other vast criminal conspiracy: the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has updated its leniency policy for corporate offenders, with new emphasis on prompt self-disclosure of the violations and remediation to prevent repeat offenses. The Antitrust Division has long allowed the first individual…
Read MoreA Major Shift in Antitrust Policy
Well this is fortunate timing: one day after we had a post exploring the antitrust challenges around Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Justice Department’s top antitrust official gave a speech warning that his division will be more likely to block proposed mergers and less likely to accept settlements that simply restrict post-merger practices. …
Read MoreMicrosoft, Activision and Antitrust Issues
OK, Microsoft has proposed acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Now comes the parlor game of analyzing the ethics and compliance issues involved in this mammoth deal, and two arise right away: surviving regulatory scrutiny, and repairing Activision’s defective corporate culture. We can begin with the regulatory scrutiny, because this deal captures so many current…
Read MoreUpdate on Antitrust Enforcement Issues
A new analysis of cartel enforcement in 2019 finds that corporate penalties continued to remain low at the end of the 2010s, even as the number of cartel enforcement actions seems to be holding steady — which might suggest that regulators’ shift to more cooperation and compliance is paying off. That’s one inference to draw…
Read MoreBrace for Procurement Compliance!
The Justice Department is launching a new task force to crack down on procurement fraud, so corporate compliance officers should brace for a new wave of interest in how your employees chat with rivals and approach bidding on government contracts. The dog and pony show happened in Washington on Tuesday, complete with a press conference…
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