EI News and Notes

Pantech Settles Patent Infringement Suit Brought by Fractus

EI Senior Vice President Richard Shin and EI Senior Economist Gale Mosteller assisted Pantech Company in a patent infringement suit brought by Fractus. They computed a reasonable royalty for the alleged infringement of antenna patents and analyzed the methodology used and royalty proposed by Fractus’s damages expert. Shortly after the submission of EI’s report, the parties settled the lawsuit. Pantech was represented by H.C. Park & Associates PLC.

FirstEnergy Corp Merges With Allegheny Energy Inc.

The Department of Justice has completed its review of the companies’ proposed merger and has closed its investigation. EI Principal John Morris represented both companies in their respective filings. Dr. Morris leads the energy practice at EI and has consulted on several merger filings at the Department of Justice, the Federal Regulatory Commission and other antitrust agencies. Dr. Morris’s team at EI included EI Senior Vice President Richard Shin and EI Senior Economists Lona Fowdur, Allison Holt, Su Sun, Gale Mosteller and Carol Miu. FirstEnergy Corp was represented by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and Allegheny Energy Inc. was represented by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Article Published on the Horizontal Merger Guidelines

EI Senior Vice President Michael G. Baumann coauthored an article that reviews the Horizontal Merger Guidelines recently issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The article, entitled, “Margin of Error: The Flawed Paradigm in the New Merger Guidelines,” is in the Antitrust Chronicle—Competition Policy International. It points out that the analytical core of the new Guidelines relies on an assumption that was long ago shown to be invalid and demonstrates that the paradigm in the new Guidelines is not consistent with basic economic principles.