The American Booksellers Association, a group that represents many independent bookstores, has submitted a letter to the US Department of Justice asking for an investigation into the pricing practices of Amazon.com, Walmart and Target. The organization is accusing the retailers of illegal predatory pricing.
An unnamed former Google employee claimed Friday night that Apple and Google have been in an unofficial but potentially anti-competitive agreement not to poach each other's employees. Supposedly confirmed for TechCrunch by multiple previous workers at the search engine firm, the practice hasn't been codified in writing but has been widely understood and practiced at both companies. Neither would try to directly recruit from the other, according to the tip.
AT&T announced on Monday that its mobile division has finalized the swap of wireless assets with Verizon Wireless, as the agreement was approved by the FCC and Department of Justice. Under the deal, AT&T Mobility has acquired former Rural Cellular Corporation properties that were bought by Verizon Wireless. The deal includes licenses, network assets and subscribers in metropolitan and rural service areas (RSAs) in Burlington, VT, RSA-2 in New York, RSA-1 and RSA-2 in Vermont, RSA-2 and RSA-3 in Washington and portions of Kentucky's RSA-6. The deal gives AT&T its first presence in the state of Vermont.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that LG Display, Sharp Corp. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. plead guilty to criminal accusations of conspiring to fix prices in the sale of LCD panels and agreed to collectively pay $585 million in fines. LG will pay the majority of that amount, or $400 million, which is the second-highest criminal fine the DoJ's Antitrust Division has ever imposed. The charges were filed on Wednesday in the US District Court in San Francisco, with the three companies agreeing to cooperate with the investigation.
The US Department of Justice on Thursday approved Verizon Wireless' acquisition of Alltel Communications, bringing through a deal that weighs in at $28 billion. RCR Wireless News reports that the deal, which was first officially acknowledged in early June, will provide Verizon with wireless assets in 100 markets, spread over 22 states, including North and South Dakota, Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming, among others.
Late last week, the US Department of Justice officially told chipmaker AMD it has ended its antitrust investigation into the company's pricing and marketing practices and will not take any action, AMD announced on Monday. The subpoenas were issued at the end of 2006 for AMD and ATI Technologies, which was purchased by AMD earlier that year, as well as competitor NVIDIA. As the top two add-in graphics chipmakers were producing products similar in performance and pricing, industry analysts believed the two were involved in collusion and price fixing practices.
The US Department of Justice will allegedly not pursue charges against Apple for the backdating of stocks for CEO Steve Jobs, as well as several other current and former employees. The Wall Street Journal writes that while neither the US attorney's office nor Apple itself would comment, lawyers for two of the accused confirm that they see "no other outcome", after a full review of the evidence against Jobs et al, and being notified that the criminal inquiry is over.
The Federal Communications Commission's staff today tentatively proposed that the US government agency approve the long-delayed merger between satellite radio providers Sirius and XM. The move potentially leads to a completed approval in as soon as three weeks and has received the early blessing of FCC chair Kevin Martin, who states that the union would be "in the public interest" as long as the unified company continues to voluntarily abide by certain conditions.
XM expects its proposed merger with Sirius to be approved by the summer, the satellite radio provider said today during a conference call discussing its latest quarterly results. President and chief executive Nate Davis now claims that the winter 2008 quarter is XM's last "as a standalone company" and goes so far as to drop its financial guidance for the upcoming quarter, saying the prediction won't apply to a unified company. Recent government steps to greenlight the deal are signs approval is close, according to Davis.
