Show Notes
Cartels may be as old as “Adam Smith’s smoke-filled room,” but in today’s world, they’re employing sophisticated tools like algorithms and AI. Enforcers continue to target price-fixing, bid-rigging and other potential antitrust violations. Skadden attorneys Bill Batchelor (partner, Brussels and London) and James Fredricks (partner, Washington, D.C.) highlight what’s changed 一 and what hasn’t 一 when it comes to cartel enforcement. They compare and contrast prosecutorial priorities and methods on both sides of the Atlantic. “Prevention,” as Bill explains, “still remains far, far better than the cure.” Tune in for their insight and guidance to corporate counsel who may be navigating these waters. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Bill Batchelor What he does: Bill Batchelor has 20 years of EU and U.K. competition law experience and focuses his practice on conduct investigations, including abuse of dominance, cartels and vertical agreements. He regularly represents clients on EU and global merger control matters and litigation, and provides counsel on distribution and collaboration agreements in complex and highly regulated industries, such as health care, financial services, insurance, media and entertainment, and gambling, among others. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “We may have been slightly slow to pick up no-poach as an area of cartel interest, but we’re speeding up over in Europe. I think the main headlines in terms of the enforcement trends are: traditional cartels are still very much part of the enforcement focus.” Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: James Fredricks What he does: James Fredricks counsels and defends clients on all types of antitrust investigations and prosecutions, as well as other complex and multijurisdictional actions brought by government enforcers. Previously, he served as an antitrust prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice for over two decades. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “Just a couple of weeks ago, a jury returned a verdict against a couple of defendants in Savannah, Georgia, for fixing the prices of concrete, rigging bids for concrete, allocating customers for concrete. The legal theory that underpinned it was about as straightforward of a case of per se conduct as they come. No one should think that the government has abandoned its traditional prosecutorial priorities in this space.” Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X & LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to Fierce Competition on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Fierce Competition is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.
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After a decade of litigation, the Court of Justice had every opportunity to say plainly whether pre-installation, by itself, is tying in an age of app stores. It declined. Bill Batchelor and fellow Skadden antitrust/competition partner Antoni Terra join host Jacqueline Arena to unpack the Google Android judgment: why the commission need not run a counterfactual analysis, how revenue sharing agreements can still form part of the factual context even when they are not themselves found abusive and the contentious paragraph suggesting tying can be an abuse without any as-efficient-competitor test. Jacqui also tracks related Google proceedings and regulatory developments in Australia, the U.S. and across APAC. Tune in for what a Commission-friendly ruling means for compliance and defense strategy in digital markets. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Jacqueline Arena Title: Asia Pacific Counsel, Antitrust/Competition Specialty: Jacqueline advises on international competition and EU antitrust issues. Based in Hong Kong, she has broad experience advising Asian companies across the APAC region. She also represents multinational clients across different industry sectors, including financial services and pharmaceuticals. Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: Bill Batchelor What he does: Bill has 20 years of EU and U.K. competition law experience and focuses his practice on conduct investigations, including abuse of dominance, cartels and vertical agreements. He regularly represents clients on EU and global merger control matters and litigation. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “On the defense side, I don’t think AEC is dead. I think, as a practical matter, it is really hard for the EC to look at your thick economic submission, big data-crunching job showing that competition on the merits could actually happen here, and just wave a hand at it and say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t have to look at it.’” Connect: LinkedIn Name: Antoni Terra What he does: Antoni's practice focuses on complex merger control matters requiring EU, U.K. and international approvals. He also provides competition advice in relation to foreign subsidies, antitrust investigations, vertical agreements and compliance programs. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “So, for all of us, the takeaway that we can get, which is very European Commission-friendly, is that the European Court of Justice, in these judgments that we had very recently in Google Android, is basically saying you need to take a look at all the facts involved in the case, even if some of them are not perceived abusive, like revenue sharing agreements.” Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X and LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to Fierce Competition on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Fierce Competition is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.
Antitrust/competition attorneys Evan R. Kreiner, Joseph M. Rancour and Justine M. Haimi discuss the rise of state attorneys general as independent antitrust enforcers. The conversation covers new mini-Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filing regimes spreading across the country, California's aggressive legislative push, recent high-profile cases and how states are investing in enforcement resources — from new hires and dedicated units to outside counsel and expanded budgets. The episode also explores what this increased state activism means for deal makers navigating merger review and conduct litigation, including why companies can no longer assume that settling with federal enforcers will resolve state-level exposure. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Joseph M. Rancour Title: Partner, Antitrust/Competition Specialty: Joe has broad antitrust experience across a variety of industries, including semiconductors, technology platforms, telecommunications, medical devices, life sciences, chemicals and financial exchanges. He regularly represents clients before the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: Evan R. Kreiner What he does: Evan represents clients in a broad spectrum of industries, including technology, health care and financial services, and his experience covers a diverse array of matters, from state and federal antitrust and unfair competition claims to contractual disputes. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: "The thing that kind of set this case apart is that in the middle of trial, the DOJ reached a settlement with Live Nation that seemed to have come as a surprise to the state attorneys general that were prosecuting the case alongside them. That's not something that you would typically see particularly in the middle of trial." Connect: LinkedIn Name: Justine M. Haimi What she does: Justine represents clients in connection with the antitrust aspects of litigation, mergers and acquisitions and advisory matters, working across industries including health care, medical devices, insurance, consumer goods, telecommunications, energy and pharmaceuticals. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: "Several states have implemented or are implementing so-called mini-HSR statutes. The ones that are in place now are fairly low burden, filings are based on revenues of the companies involved in the relevant state, and importantly, the statutes in place right now are not bars on closing. The goal of these statutes is really to get state regulators the same information federal antitrust regulators are receiving early on in a transaction’s lifetime to help inform enforcement priorities and flag deals that may have an outsized impact on certain states." Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X and LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to Fierce Competition on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. “Fierce Competition” is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.
From Australia to Argentina to Africa, merger control regimes around the world are being reshaped in real time. Host Simon Dodd is joined by colleagues Georgios Zacharodimos, counsel in Brussels, and Jacqueline Arena, Asia Pacific counsel, for a sweeping tour of the developments reshaping global deals. Together they navigate five major themes: new and shifting filing requirements across multiple jurisdictions; the rise of suspensory requirements; institutional stability concerns in Mexico and beyond; low-nexus jurisdictions; and confidentiality in merger reviews. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Simon Dodd Title: Senior Knowledge Strategy Lawyer Specialty: Simon is a senior knowledge strategy lawyer at Skadden, focusing on antitrust and competition law. His work concentrates predominantly on worldwide merger control laws, particularly involving jurisdictional and procedural issues, in addition to assisting the firm by providing cutting-edge and innovative solutions. Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: Jacqueline Arena What she does: Jacqueline advises on international competition and EU antitrust issues. Based in Hong Kong, she has broad experience advising Asian companies across the APAC region. She also represents multinational clients across different industry sectors, including financial services and pharmaceuticals. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “For deal teams, if you're doing deals in Southeast Asia, it does put Indonesia back on the map in a real consideration for filings because it does change the nature of the filings from postclosing to preclosing, and that's always something to consider.” Connect: LinkedIn Name: Georgios Zacharodimos What he does: Georgios advises on all aspects of European and international antitrust and competition law, including merger control, foreign subsidies, digital regulation, abuse of dominance, cartels and antitrust compliance issues. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “While the overall global trend is towards more active enforcement, there are at least some signs that authorities are listening to concerns about proportionality and deal execution.” Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X and LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to Fierce Competition on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Fierce Competition is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.
The ABA 2026 Antitrust Spring Meeting gathered antitrust lawyers and practitioners – some 3,500 of them – for 70 panels in Washington, D.C. Host Bill Batchelor reports back along with Skadden antitrust/competition partners Evan Kreiner and Aurora Luoma. Drawing out the central themes from the conference, they cover the latest in merger control — from the CMA's "4 Ps" framework to the EU's revised guidelines and the fate of the FTC's expanded HSR form — as well as cartel enforcement trends including AI-driven investigations and algorithmic pricing, and notable market power developments in digital regulation and social media. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Bill Batchelor Title: Partner, Antitrust/Competition Specialty: Bill has 20 years of EU and U.K. competition law experience and focuses his practice on investigations, including abuse of dominance, cartels and vertical agreements. Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: Aurora Luoma What she does: Aurora covers competition law, including international merger control, antitrust investigations, state aid and sectoral regulation. She is based in London. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “The UK CMA has been rapidly shifting its approach to merger control enforcement in the past 18 months or so. What we heard at the ABA conference was a continued emphasis from the CMA officials on its shift to what it calls its "4 Ps" framework. So, that's greater predictability, pace, process and proportionality in merger review.” Connect: LinkedIn Name: Evan Kreiner What he does: Evan is an experienced litigator in high-stakes antitrust trials against government regulators and private plaintiffs. He is based in New York. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: "On the substance, people were quite interested in Judge Boasberg's evaluation and analysis, both the market that Instagram and Facebook – Meta's products that were challenged by the FTC – participate in, as well as how Judge Boasberg considered whether or not Instagram and Facebook have market power. So, market definition in that case was hotly contested.” Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X and LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to “Fierce Competition” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. “Fierce Competition” is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.
AI dominates headlines from both a deal and antitrust enforcement perspective. Antoni Terra, counsel in Skadden's Brussels office, moderates a discussion on recent developments and trends across Europe and the U.S. in the AI space with colleagues Mike Menitove, partner in Skadden's New York office, and Iacovos Antoniou, European counsel in Skadden's London office. The panel explores key merger control issues, the EU Digital Markets Act and U.K. Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act, and ongoing litigation such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s challenge to Google's search business. 💡 Meet Your Host 💡 Name: Antoni Terra Title: Counsel, Antitrust/Competition Specialty: Antoni’s practice focuses on complex merger control matters requiring EU, U.K. and international approvals. Connect: LinkedIn 💡 Featured Guests 💡 Name: Mike Menitove What he does: Mike represents clients in antitrust and complex litigation matters across a broad range of industries, including health care, agriculture, technology and sports, among others. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “U.S. regulators have expressed concerns about resources, inputs and the scale needed to compete in the generative AI space.” Connect: LinkedIn Name: Iacovos Antoniou What he does: Iacovos advises on all aspects of EU, U.K. and international competition law, including merger control, antitrust investigations and compliance with Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. Organization: Skadden Words of wisdom: “Competition enforcement in the AI space is here to stay and potentially become more prevalent. So, it's definitely a good time to zoom in on competition principles and understand the regulatory direction.” Connect: LinkedIn Connect with Skadden ☑️ Follow us on X and LinkedIn. ☑️ Subscribe to Fierce Competition on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Fierce Competition is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This podcast is considered advertising under applicable state laws.