In response to the Dental Board’s teeth whitening action, the FTC filed a lawsuit against the Dental Board. The FTC alleged that the Dental Board violated antitrust law. The FTC felt that the Dental Board’s actions represented dentists attempting to shut down market competitors. They based this belief partially on the fact that the Dental Board was controlled by dentists, and that the dentists had a financial interest in shutting down the teeth whitening industry. The FTC began the lawsuit in an administrative complaint, which is a lawsuit heard by the Federal Trade Commission itself. The FTC conducted hearings and ultimately found that the Dental Board’s teeth whitening actions were in violation of antitrust law. The Dental Board appealed the Commission’s ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court. The Fourth Circuit agreed with the FTC that the …show more content…
Therefore, what the United States Supreme Court said about active supervision will likely be important in determining whether state boards are liable. The Court held that active supervision requires a “realistic assurance” that board policy promotes state policy and not the individual interests of the board members. The Court noted that supervision is flexible and context-dependent. One major key is that supervision must go behind a review of procedure, and instead it must be a review of the substance of the policy. This review must include both the power to veto or modify the particular decisions of the boards. The reviewer also must not be an active market participation in the particular market that the board is regulating. A major litigation issue going forward will likely be whether review is “active” enough to meet the Midcal
and fair one. Many believe it to be the first anti- trust decision in U.S.
This book also elaborates on the study of rulemaking by giving examples through cases, studies, loads of government documentation and interviews with policy makers. Following the information and chapters is really easy. The book is illustrated with clear tables, charts, and figures. Each chapter is clearly defined and tables/figures are clearly marked after the table of contents.
Monitoring and sanctions are the more costly of oversight functions and the least likely to be used; they also do not ensure that the noncompliance problem will end. (McCubbins, Noll and Weingast 1987) This follows with McCubbins and Schwartz who theorize that members of congress do not neglect monitoring and their oversight functions but that they prefer the fire-alarm policing in which citizens tend to alert them to problems because it allows them to also do their legislative work (1984). Monitoring along with its economic costs also has political costs if an action that an agency takes in its noncompliance creates a new political interest then by sanctioning them members can incur political costs that would not have otherwise been present with proper anticipation and prevention. (McCubbins, Noll and Weingast 1987) Anticipatory prevention of noncompliance is a form of latent control that congress can exercise that is more effective; Calvert, McCubbins and Weingast develop a theory that includes this finding, “Latent oversight is, by definition, never observed; but its role in implementing political control over the agency is in principle just as important as that of active control (Calvert, McCubbins and Weingast, 1989).” This often occurs when the agent fears sanction in the case of this theory developed the veto, this point would
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
The outsourced administrative support company accused CFPB of the alleged accountability absence that violated the US Constitution. The Congress “interfered” with the consumer finance protection regulation that stirred additional legal charges against the CFPB. However, the specialty of CFPB as the only existing remedy against the financial crisis made it possible for the company to overrule the congressional interference and retain “accountability deficits” (Block-Lieb, 2012, p. 28). The present position shows the dubiousness of the CFPB that goes against the governmental regulations while secures the ability of the population to loan and be
The anti-trust laws were set in place to promote vigorous competition but also to protect the consumer from unfair mergers and business practices. The first antitrust law that was passed by Congress is called the Sherman Act and is a “comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade” according to www.FTC.gov . Later in 1914 Congress passed two more laws, one creating the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) and then the Clayton Act, which now create the three core federal antitrust laws that are still active currently. Although they have changed over the last hundred years, they still have the same concept: “to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up” as stated by the FTC.gov website on The Antitrust Laws.
It is an assumption by many that Canada has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. But do they really? There are numerous health services in Canada which should be part of the universal care nonetheless are not. These include but are not limited to: dental care, vision care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and prescription drug coverage. This report will solely focus on why basic dental care should be a part of the Canadian universal healthcare. Dental care is predominantly delivered in the private sector on a fee-for-service basis, with approximately 62.6% of Canadians paying for care through employment-based insurance and 31.9% through out-of-pocket expenditures and only a small amount of the Canadians, 5.5%, are qualified for public funding through government assistance programmes (Ramraj and Quinonez, 2012). It was seen that by 2009, dental coverage affordability became a problem not just for the low income families but also impacted middle-income earners as a result of their lack of, or decreased access to comprehensive dental insurance (Ramraj, 2013). It is stated by the World Health Organization that universal health care coverage should reassure access to necessary care and protect patients from financial hardship, and that the governments are obligated to
We can cross examine each principle outlined within the Belmont Report to specific sequences of events to determine in which ways these principles were skewed or ignored, perhaps understanding the way in which the regulatory protocols can be incorrectly carried out or enforced, despite the fact the United States has set such p...
In February of 2015 a federal class action suit was filed against GNC in Florida. The suit alleged that herbal supplements sold by GNC were purposefully mislabeled. The claim is that GNC mislabeled their “Herbal Plus” line including GNC Plus Gingko Biloba, GNC Herbal Plus St. John’s Wort; GNC Herbal Plus Ginseng; and GNC Herbal Plus Echinacea. The suit alleges that these products contain none of the plant products listed in the name, but instead are made with rice, wheat, grass, garlic or pine. The suit is still pending (Weil
The Federal Trade Commission is consisted of three bureaus and ten offices. Each bureau is intended to focus on a specific area to ensure that fair-trading is being practiced in the country. The Bureau of Competition seeks to eliminate anticompetitive business practices through the antitrust laws, ensuring that consumers receive goods and services at prices competent to their qualities. The Bureau of Consumer Protection seeks to protect consumers from unfair and fraudulent practices. Moreover, the bureau investigates individual companies and corporations to ensure that no fraudulent activity is endangering...
Because the field of Business Law is so great, this paper will examine a single aspect of Business Law, that of antitrust action. Specifically, as it is applied to Microsoft, antitrust litigation is raising eyebrows in both the legal and business worlds.
The second anti-trust suit filed in 1974, United States vs. AT&T, had two major issues. The first was that AT&T's relationship with Western Electric, which AT&T retained in the 1956 settlement, was illegal. The second issue ignited by MCI who was attempting to penetrate the large business market was the fact that AT&T monopolized the long distance...
In this case, Tiffany versus eBay lawsuit, Tiffany have argued that eBay should be held responsible for contributing on user’s trademark violations, trademark dilution, and false advertising. However, the Second Circuit found that eBay was not directly or secondarily liable for such trademark infringement or dilution. Though, the appeals court remanded Tiffany’s false advertising claim to the lower court on the basis that some advertisements on eBay for Tiffany products may have been misleading (Anderson & Schvimmer, 2010).
Before the jury decides a verdict, the last step in the trial process is the closing arguments. There were no closing arguments because the parties had to settle on nine million dollars. They did this because the plaintiff’s attorneys went bankrupt due to this case and they couldn’t afford to invest any more money into the case. Beatrice Foods ended up being not liable for the deaths of children so they were allowed to leave the case. Due to this, only W.R. Grace had to settle with the plaintiff. Later on in 1988, Jan Schlichtmann brought this case to the EPA’s attention and the EPA decided to bring lawsuits against the companies. W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods ended up having to pay for their huge mistake. They had to pay for the largest chemical cleanup in the Northeastern which cost sixty- four million dollars.
On October 7, 1998 the Department of Justice announced it’s intent to sue Visa and MasterCard on antitrust grounds. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said, “The Justice Department’s antitrust division found persuasive and systematic evidence of the harm done to competition in the credit card market. Competitive initiatives that could benefit consumers have been abandoned, delayed or suppressed. Consumer choice has been reduced, and competition among card networks has been substantially restrained”(American Express Company, 2000, 1).