The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal investigation into Samsung’s competitive practices. The Commission will assess whether the Korean manufacturer “used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules.” Samsung has used a collection of its patents to launch a series of lawsuits against rival companies, such as Apple. The technology giant maintains, however, that thes...

Officials in the European Union will decide by the end of March whether or not to formally investigate Google. An informal investigation into Google’s practices has been ongoing since November 2010. “I will receive comments from the case team towards the end of the first quarter,” European Union competition commissioner Joaguin Alumnia told Reuters. “I do not expect anything sooner. Let us see.” 10 different firms have filed anti-competition complaints against Google with the E...

Italy’s Antitrust Authority has fined Apple Sales International, Apple Italia Srl and Apple Retail Italia a total of $1.2 million for “unfair commercial practices.” According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Italy-based retail stores were fined €500,000 ($653,000) for not providing customers with adequate information about its AppleCare Protection Plan warranties, and an additional €400,000 ($523,00) for not being completely transparent about the length of product guarantees....

The antitrust division of the United States Justice Department will investigate Verizon Wireless’s plans to acquire spectrum from Comcast and its partners for $3.6 billion. Verizon Wireless announced in early December its intentions to purchase 122 AWS spectrum licenses from SpectrumCo, a joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. The carrier said it plans to use the additional spectrum to build out its 4G LTE network, pending government approval of the purchase. The Jus...

Jurors in a Utah court failed to reach a verdict in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Microsoft more than six years ago. Software firm Novell filed a complaint against the Redmond-based personal computing giant in 2004, alleging that it reneged on a deal that cost Novell $1.2 billion. The Utah-based software company’s word processing software, WordPerfect, was supposed to be included with the Windows 95 operating system but Microsoft claims that it dumped plans to bundle the program when Novell failed ...

A jury in Utah reportedly said it is close to reaching a verdict in a case that could cost Microsoft $1 billion in damages. Software firm Novell filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in 2004 claiming the firm had initially agreed to launch Novell’s WordPerfect program with Windows 95, but then went on to release its operating system without the word processing software. The move cost Novell $1.2 billion according to the company’s claims. Microsoft argued that Novell’s software was not...

Former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, recently testified in an antitrust suit brought against the company by Novell in 2004. According to the Associated Press, Novell is arguing that Microsoft originally said it would sell Novell’s WordPerfect software as a feature of Windows 95, but then turned around and launched the operating system without WordPerfect built-in. As a result, Novell had to sell the word processor alone, taking a $1.2 billion loss on the deal. Reportedly, Microsoft&...

Expedia, Nextag and Yelp are in Washington, D.C. to participate in a Senate judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing about whether or not Google has acted anti-competitively in the market. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman is one of the executives who has been asked to provide testimony during the hearing and he has posted his written testimony on Yelp’s website. “Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best sources of information on the web,” Stoppelman said. “It now hop...

Senator Herb Kohl, the chairman of the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee is recommending that federal regulators deny AT&T’s $39 billion planned acquisition of T-Mobile. ”I have concluded that this acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies,” Kohl said on Wednesday. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, chairwoman of the Hous...

Google’s chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, Reuters reported on Monday. On June 24th, Google announced that the Federal Trade Commission would be reviewing its business practices. The search giant said it was “still unclear” as to what the FTC’s concerns were but that it would cooperate fully with the investigation. Watchdog groups such as Fairsearch.org have repeatedly accused Google of eanga...

1PlusV, a French search company, has filed a lawsuit against Google asking for 295 million euros ($421 million). “Between 2007 and 2010, no less than 30 vertical search engines created by 1plusV were black-listed, some of which showed significant business potential,” the company said in its lawsuit. According to Reuters, 1PlusV plans to file the official complaint on Tuesday or Wednesday with the Paris commercial court. Google has been taking a lot of legal heat recently. In the United States, Google rece...

Google officially announced on Friday that it received word on Thursday that the Federal Trade Commission will begin reviewing its business. Google said that “it’s still unclear what the FTC’s concerns are,” but early reports have suggested the complaints involve the Internet giant’s search and online advertising businesses. Google said that it will continue to follow its five pillars: “do what’s best for the user,” “provide the most relevant answers as qu...

The Federal Communications Commission may subpoena Google during the next five days as part of an anti-trust investigation related to the company’s search and web advertising practices. According to The Wall Street Journal, it is only illegal to purchase or abuse a monopoly, and so a subpoena and an investigation aren’t particularly damning to Google. Reportedly, investigators will examine if the search giant has purposely pushed users towards using its own services, as opposed to those offered by...

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe are among the companies named in a new class actions lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the state of California. The suit, filed by former Lucasfilm software engineer Siddharth Hariharan, alleges that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm and Pixar violated antitrust laws by conspiring to fix employee pay.” Hariharan claims that these companies have colluded to limit career opportunities and impose artificial salary caps for employees by entering into agreements th...