DirecTV seeks oral argument on the pending June 26 motion of Nexstar Media Group and sidecar companies Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting to dismiss DirecTV’s antitrust complaint for lack of standing (see 2306270051), said DirecTV’s letter motion Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-02221) to U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York in Manhattan. The motion was fully briefed as of July 24, and discovery has remained stayed pending the motion’s resolution under a June 6 order from U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty, who presided over the case until it was transferred to Castel Feb. 28, said the letter motion. DirecTV’s March 15 complaint alleges Nexstar, Mission and White Knight colluded to set retransmission consent fee prices (see 2303150041).
Apple opposes SaurikIT’s Jan. 18 petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc of the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s rejection of its appeal to reverse the district court’s dismissal of its App Store antitrust challenge (see 2401190065), said Apple’s opposition response Tuesday (docket 22-16527). The 9th Circuit, like the district court before it, correctly held that SaurikIT's antitrust claims “are barred by the applicable statute of limitations,” said Apple. SaurikIT alleges that Apple violated the antitrust laws by mandating, in 2008, that the App Store be the exclusive marketplace for iPhone and iPad apps and, in 2009, by requiring Apple's in-app purchase system, it said. SaurikIT contends those practices excluded its “unauthorized” app store, called Cydia, from the market. Even though SaurikIT concedes it was aware of these policies back in 2008 and 2009, “it inexplicably waited” 11 years to bring its antitrust action against Apple, said the opposition. The claims were, as the 9th Circuit found, untimely on the face of the complaint, it said. SaurikIT seeks rehearing by arguing that the 9th Circuit erred in rejecting its attempt “to get out from under the time-bar by invoking the continuing violation doctrine through conclusory allegations,” it said. According to SaurikIT, such conclusory allegations are a “get-out-of-jail-free card” that allows even the most obviously untimely claims to proceed into discovery, “imposing massive burdens on courts and litigants alike,” said Apple’s opposition. “That is not the law,” it said. The 9th Circuit “has repeatedly rejected attempts to circumvent the statute of limitations where, as here, the relevant allegations are conclusory,” it said. Because the panel didn’t “overlook or misapprehend” any material point of law or fact, the petition for rehearing should be denied, it said.
Defendants Apple, Visa and Mastercard seek to stay all proceedings in the antitrust class action brought Dec. 14 by Mirage Wine & Spirits, a liquor store in O’Fallon, Illinois, said their memorandum Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-03942) in U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois in East St. Louis on support of their joint motion to stay. Mirage alleges that Apple had the leverage to “disrupt” Visa's and Mastercard's dominant position in the U.S. market for point-of-sale payment card network services when it was preparing to introduce its iPhone Apple Pay feature in 2014, but instead it colluded with them to maintain their market domination (see 2312150005). The defendants are awaiting a decision by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on whether the Mirage case should be transferred as a tag-along action to the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn to be coordinated with In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation (MDL docket 1720), said their memorandum. The panel recently issued an order conditionally transferring the Mirage action to MDL 1720, based on the “overlap” between Mirage’s allegations and the claims and issues already consolidated in MDL 1720. Apple, Visa and Mastercard seek a short stay of all deadlines pending the panel’s final resolution of where the Mirage action will be litigated, it said. Such a “discrete stay” won’t prejudice Mirage, but allowing this action to proceed, only to see it transferred to MDL 1720, will result in a “significant waste” of the court’s and parties’ resources, it said.
Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have engaged in a “years-long campaign” to block FuboTV’s “sports-first” streaming business, resulting in “significant harm” to Fubo and consumers, said Fubo Tuesday of the antitrust complaint it filed in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. The complaint (docket 1:24-mc-00070), which remained under seal Wednesday, alleges that the forthcoming launch of the companies’ sports-streaming joint venture “steals Fubo’s playbook and is the latest example of this campaign,” it said. “Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice,” said Fubo CEO David Gandler in a statement. “By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market.” The strategy ensures that consumers desiring a dedicated sports channel lineup “are left with no alternative but to subscribe” to the joint venture, it said. Disney, Fox and WBD didn’t comment.
T-Mobile and the seven AT&T and Verizon customers suing the carrier to vacate its 2020 Sprint buy on antitrust grounds, propose July 16, 2026, as the deadline for completing expert depositions in the case, said their joint status report Friday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin on Feb. 6 asked the parties to submit the joint expert discovery schedule by Friday. During telephone status conference that day, he rejected T-Mobile’s proposal for bifurcated discovery because he feared it would cause “undue delay” (see 2402060072).
Though fact discovery has ended in DOJ's Eastern Virginia antitrust case against Google, DOJ “demanded that, within three business days, Google produce all hyperlinked documents contained in 299 documents that Google’s experts cited in their expert reports or identify where those hyperlinks were previously produced,” said Google’s memorandum of law Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-00108) in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in opposition. DOJ seeks to compel Google to produce all data and information referred to or relied on by its testifying experts. When Google wouldn't do so, DOJ moved to compel production, arguing that the expert stipulation and electronically stored information (ESI) order require it. “They do not,” said the memorandum. The expert stipulation requires production of only those materials that experts actually referred to or relied on, and Google’s experts did not refer to or rely on the hyperlinks that the DOJ seeks, it said. The ESI order doesn’t extend Google’s obligations “past the long-closed period for fact discovery,” and DOJ’s demands exceed the “reasonable and proportionate” requests that were authorized during fact discovery, “especially because they received all of the 299 documents months or years ago,” Google said. "Plaintiffs view their motion as a dress rehearsal for a long-running engagement," said the memorandum requesting that the court "make clear that this show must not go on." Fact discovery is closed, and "Google should have no obligation to produce any documents in this case over and above the six million that Plaintiffs have already received," it said. The Jan. 24, 2023, antitrust suit brought by DOJ and eight states alleges Google monopolized key technologies that make digital advertising possible. DOJ asserts Google’s “anticompetitive conduct” thwarted competition and “stifled innovation” in digital display advertising technology for 15 years.
Nothing in the FTC’s letter to the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court Wednesday about Microsoft job cuts in its video game operations undermines “the primary reason” for the 9th Circuit to affirm the district court’s denial of the FTC’s injunction to block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard buy, said Microsoft’s rebuttal letter Thursday (docket 23-15992). The FTC has failed to raise “a serious question as to whether Microsoft is likely to foreclose competition in the alleged console, subscription or cloud markets,” it said. The FTC’s letter told the 9th Circuit that Microsoft’s plan to cut 1,900 video game jobs “contradicts” its “representations” in the FTC’s appeal to temporarily pause Microsoft’s Activision buy pending the commission’s evaluation of the acquisition’s antitrust merits. The FTC told the 9th Circuit that Microsoft’s statements that the layoffs were part of an execution plan that would reduce areas of overlap between Microsoft and Activision is “inconsistent” with Microsoft’s suggestion to the 9th Circuit that the two companies “will operate independently post-merger.” But the FTC’s letter “provides no basis for undercutting” the district court’s denial of the injunction, said Microsoft’s rebuttal. “Moreover, the FTC’s factual assertions are incomplete and misleading,” it said. Consistent with broader trends in the gaming industry, Activision “was already planning on eliminating a significant number of jobs while still operating as an independent company,” said Microsoft. The recent announcement of 1,900 job cuts thus can’t be “attributed fully” to the combination, it said. Microsoft “continues fully to stand behind its representations” to the 9th Circuit, it said. “To be clear, while some overlap was identified and some jobs were eliminated,” Microsoft has structured and is operating the post-merger company “in a way that will readily enable it to divest any or all of the Activision businesses as robust market participants in the unlikely event that a divestiture ultimately is ordered,” it said. “This is precisely what Microsoft represented previously.”
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin for Northern Illinois in Chicago adopted the parties’ suggested fact discovery cutoff date of Nov. 13, 2025, in the case brought by seven AT&T and Verizon customers seeking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy on anticompetitive grounds (see 2311030011). The date “seems reasonable, given the fairly complicated and extensive scope of discovery in this case,” the judge told a telephone status conference Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-03189). Durkin also agrees with the parties to hold a status conference every 60 days, he said, with the next conference scheduled for April 5 at 9:15 a.m. CDT. He also ordered the parties to file a joint status report a week in advance of each status conference, though T-Mobile is concerned that raising any disputes in the status reports will discourage resolving those disputes without court intervention. The biggest, and only, disagreement between the parties is whether merits and class expert discovery "should be separated or proceed on the same track,” said the judge. “This case is already going slowly in my mind,” he said. “I believe there should be only one expert discovery period,” he said. “I think bifurcation will cause undue delay. It’s going to lead to some inefficiencies and, in my experience, endless disputes about whether certain expert discovery is class versus merits.” The parties currently propose that expert discovery not begin until December 2025, and “that’s almost two years from now,” said Durkin. He asked the parties to submit a joint expert discovery schedule by Friday.
Nonparties Altice, AT&T, Comcast and the 13 states that unsuccessfully challenged T-Mobile's 2020 Sprint buy won't oppose the motion of seven AT&T and Verizon plaintiffs to compel T-Mobile to produce trial exhibits and deposition transcripts from the 2019 T-Mobile/Sprint bench trial (see 2401180011), said T-Mobile and the seven plaintiffs in a joint statement Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. AT&T told the parties that it doesn’t think the AT&T documents at issue are relevant to the case, but that if any other nonparty files an opposition implicating broader issues, “it reserves the right to join that opposition,” said the statement. Feb. 7 is the deadline for the remaining nonparties -- Deutsche Telekom, Dish Network, Google, SoftBank and Verizon -- to file their oppositions to the motion to compel, it said. Replies are due Feb. 21, it said. The sought-after documents are “relevant and discoverable” under Rule 26 because they aren’t privileged and contain information directly related to the plaintiffs’ post-merger case, said the plaintiffs’ Jan. 17 motion. The plaintiffs contend the anticompetitive nature of the T-Mobile/Sprint transaction caused their own wireless rates to soar in the years since the transaction.
The seven AT&T and Verizon plaintiffs looking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy on antitrust grounds (see 2311030011) seek an order to compel T-Mobile to produce a limited number of trial exhibits and deposition transcripts and exhibits from the 2019 bench trial in the Southern District of New York in which multiple states unsuccessfully challenged the acquisition, said their motion Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. T-Mobile doesn’t oppose the motion, and has already produced the majority of trial exhibits and several deposition transcripts and exhibits from the New York case, it said. But the issue comes before the court because the requested material “includes non-party information designated confidential or highly confidential” under the protective order issued in the New York case, said the motion. The sought-after documents are “relevant and discoverable” under Rule 26 because they aren’t privileged and contain information directly related to the plaintiffs’ post-merger case, it said. Production of the “distilled set of pre-merger materials” also readily clears the Federal Rules’ standard for “proportionality,” it said. The protective order in the current post-merger case already entered by the court “will protect any information that remains genuinely confidential and sensitive,” it said. The affected nonparties -- Altice USA, Comcast and Dish Network -- “have been put on notice of the issue and have the opportunity to be heard,” it said.