Competition Corner

The landscape of antitrust enforcement in the United States continues to undergo a significant transformation, as highlighted by recent remarks from leaders at both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.

Direct Sellers, time to let out a sigh of relief. On September 5, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission officially dropped its appeal of a federal court’s decision striking down the FTC’s rule banning non-competes.

The July 2025 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Epic Games v. Google marks a landmark development in the ongoing evolution of antitrust remedies for unilateral conduct in the technology sector. The court’s willingness to affirm not just prohibitory, but also mandatory, forward-looking injunctions—requiring Google to take affirmative steps to open its Android app ecosystem to competition—signals a vigorous approach to restoring competition in digital platforms.

With renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act against illegal price discrimination looming, direct-selling companies should reassess their pricing models. The FTC has made clear that tiered wholesale pricing, which gives higher-ranked distributors more favorable terms than their lower-ranked counterparts, can create significant legal risks under antitrust laws.

As federal antitrust enforcement continues to evolve, adjust priorities, and in some cases, stall out, states are increasingly enhancing their enforcement focus, resources, and law.

Federal enforcers at the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division often receive much of the focus for antitrust enforcement, but state enforcers play a key role in the antitrust landscape. 

Colorado recently became the second state, after Washington, to enact the Uniform Antitrust Premerger Notification Act (UAPNA) and establish a general state-level premerger notification requirement. 

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has launched a new Whistleblower Rewards Program offering—for the first time—financial incentives to individuals who “report antitrust crimes and related offenses that harm consumers, taxpayers, and free market competition across industries from healthcare to agriculture.”

Semiconductors are critical components that form the foundation of virtually all modern technologies and industries, including computers, smartphones, consumer electronics, automobiles, and medical devices. Their global importance continues to grow. This blog provides an overview of recent legal developments in the semiconductor markets of Japan and the United States.

This post highlights key aspects of the Japan Freelance Act and compares them with relevant legal frameworks in the United States—particularly in California and New York—as well as in Europe with an aim to help businesses operating globally understand the important legal considerations when working with freelance workers across jurisdictions.

Sofia Arguello attended the 2025 Antitrust in the Americas Conference. The conference explored the latest in competition, data privacy, and consumer protection across the Americas. It featured in-depth panels on the most pressing competition enforcement and policy issues shaping markets in the region, with insights from top government enforcers, corporate counsel, and leading practitioners. 

The California Lawyers Association’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law hosted its inaugural In-House Counsel Summit on May 15, 2025, at the Computer History Museum in Menlo Park, California. 

In a marked shift toward competition-focused healthcare policy, the latest Executive Order on drug pricing reflects the Administration’s expanding use of antitrust tools to address high pharmaceutical costs. Framed around the “most-favored-nation” principle, this initiative is more than a pricing measure—it signals a broader regulatory agenda that targets market power and pricing disparities long shielded from traditional enforcement. Here’s what companies across the healthcare sector need to know.

Washington recently became the first state to adopt the Uniform Antitrust Premerger Notification Act (UAPNA) and establish, effective July 27, 2025, a general state-level premerger notification requirement for all transactions. 

In recent years, the international community has increasingly focused on the importance of respecting human rights in corporate activities. This trend was driven in part by the United Nations’ adoption of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011, which accelerated the global movement towards holding companies accountable for human rights violations.

We are proud to launch a short series of blogs written by our current Japanese legal trainees—bengoshi who have completed U.S. LLM programs and are now training with Winston & Strawn LLP as part of their professional development.

In an historic jury verdict on April 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division secured its first-ever jury conviction for criminal wage-fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.  For several years, the DOJ Antitrust Division had suffered a string of setbacks—with judges and juries alike—in its effort to criminally prosecute wage-fixing and “no poach” agreements between competitors in the labor market.  But a federal jury in Las Vegas, Nevada, reversed that trend by convicting Eduardo Lopez for his involvement in a three-year conspiracy to fix the wages of home healthcare nurses in the Las Vegas area, among other crimes.

On March 18, President Donald Trump fired the Federal Trade Commission’s two remaining Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, in an unprecedented move that will likely be litigated to the Supreme Court. 

On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, the Senate confirmed Gail Slater as the Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division (Division). While Slater has been circumspect in her public comments regarding past and anticipated Division priorities, her prior experience and recent statements offer early insights into her expected approach.