Technology company Rambus has appealed against the dismissal by a court in California of its US$4 billion damage claim against Micron and Hynix, which were accused of conspiring to exclude it from the computer memory market.

Printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer Viasystems has announced an US$282 million acquisition of smaller competitor DDi.

The US Department of Justice has expanded its wide-ranging price fixing investigation of the automotive parts industry to include anti-lock brakes and their related systems, a spokesperson from the DoJ’s antitrust division confirmed.

A New York appeals court has granted magazine wholesaler Anderson News the right to restore an antitrust lawsuit previously described as “implausible and incurable” by a district judge.

Micron Technology has reached a settlement agreement with Oracle, closing a lawsuit which accused the microchip maker of fixing the price of its dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered ProMedica Health System to divest St Luke’s Hospital, ruling that the August 2010 acquisition is likely to substantially lessen competition in Ohio’s health-care sector.

Eamon O’Kelly has joined Arent Fox’s antitrust practice in New York, adding to a growing number of partners leaving Dewey & LeBoeuf this year.

The US Senate has unanimously confirmed former Wilkinson Barker Knauer partner Maureen Ohlhausen as a commissioner at the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), returning Ohlhausen to the agency at which she worked for more than a decade. Ron Knox at the ABA Spring Meeting in Washington, DC.

William Kovacic says Barack Obama’s criticism of the Bush administration antitrust enforcement record was little more than politicking and that the past three years have been a continuation, not an overhaul, of the US enforcement programme. David Vascott in Washington, DC.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia says the global competition enforcement community’s next major challenge is to improve relationships between agencies to reduce issues caused by different approaches to competition enforcement. David Vascott at the ABA Spring Meeting in Washington, DC.

Competition agencies should focus on competition enforcement and leave broader policy considerations to others, said a panel of leading experts – including Joseph Stiglitz, Carl Shapiro and Susan Schwab – at the ABA Spring Meeting yesterday. David Vascott in Washington, DC.

Satellite radio broadcaster SiriusXM has filed a federal antitrust complaint against clearinghouse SoundExchange and the American Association for Independent Music (A2IM), claiming the bodies conspired to give SoundExchange a monopoly in the distribution of music licences.

Nearly 250 competition lawyers, economists and enforcers gathered at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, DC to enjoy the celebrations at the GCR Awards 2012.

The rise in US merger litigation in recent years is good for both the development of antitrust practice and for business, according to a panel of enforcers and private practice lawyers speaking yesterday at the ABA Spring Meeting. David Vascott in Washington, DC.

New York State’s highest court has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit brought against reinsurer Equitas by Global Reinsurance Corporation, limiting the scope for applying US state antitrust laws to international conspiracies.