Hello from Day 2 of US v AA in Boston! We're about to get underway. JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes is back on the stand, now being questioned by his own lawyers.

Good morning from Judge Leo Sorokin's courtroom in Boston, where @JusticeATR is challenging American Airlines - JetBlue Northeast Alliance. The joint-venture, called the Northeast Alliance, allows American and JetBlue to act “like a single airline at the expense of travelers,” DOJ attorney William Jones II said.

Google and DOJ have been arguing about documents for the past 55 minutes. On the deprivileged documents, DOJ says they think they need to re-depose 8-10 individuals. Bill Kavanaugh, a lawyer for the states, says they will probably need to re-depose 2-3, probably the same people DOJ needs.

Late last night, Google and @JusticeATR filed an update on the search antitrust case ahead of their regular status conference that this afternoon: courtlistener.com/docket/1855282… Google and DOJ have been arguing over the search giant's "Communicate with Care" program. DOJ alleges that Google systematically taught its employees to use legal privilege to hide documents. Google disputes that: politico.com/newsletters/mo…

FTC is now debating a report on online harm. Congress ordered the FTC to study how AI could be used to combat online harms including scams, fake reviews, dark patterns, child abuse, among others. The report concludes that AI tools make many mistakes and can harm privacy and free expression. It also concludes that companies keep information about their AI use secret.

FTC votes 5-0 to adopt a policy statement, stating an intention to closely examine rebates and fees paid by drug manufacturers to pharmacy benefit managers and other intermediaries in exchange for disfavoring the lowest cost drug products, including in the case of insulin. FTC policy statement now up here: ftc.gov/news-events/ne…

Third time's a charm: the Senate passed the State AG venue bill this evening by UC with an amendment removing the retroactivity provision. The bill now goes to the House where it still needs a floor vote.

Sen. Mike Lee now up again on the Senate floor trying to get unanimous consent for the state antitrust venue bill (S 1787)... Sen. Dick Durbin has objected.

Twitter will pay $150 million over the company's violation of a 2011 FTC privacy consent decree. More TK. The FTC alleges that Twitter it misused users’ phone numbers that were uploaded for security purposes, instead using them to target advertising. That violated the company's 2011 FTC consent decree where Twitter agreed to better protect users’ personal data.

At the beginning of court hearing on @JusticeATR challenge of Simon Schuster-Penguin Random House merger, Judge Florence Pan -- who was nominated to the DC Circuit today -- says she expects to resolve the case. “For now I am here and hoping I will be able to resolve the case,” she says.

🧵 Almost every story about the infant formula crisis mentions that the industry is highly concentrated. @g0ingmad and I wanted to find out how that happened bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Today four companies -- Abbott, Nestle, Mead Johnson and Perrigo -- control 90% of the market. And the biggest buyer of formula in the US is WIC, the USDA's program for low-income women and children

Lee ad tech bill is out! Companies with more than $20B in ad revenue cannot own more than one side of the market Any company with more than $5B in digits ad revenue will now have: a duty to act in their customers’ best interest and seek the most favorable terms; transparency requirements; firewalls on data sharing

Jonathan Kanter is “relentlessly inquisitive,” his former partner Andrew Finch says in introducing him before the annual Handler Lecture for the NYC Bar on #antitrust “Growing up in a middle class neighborhood in Queens I never imagined…I’d be able to be here,” Kanter says, speaking in honor of a luminary like Milton Handler. “It’s in many respects a dream come true.”

FTC Chair Lina Khan is up before House Appropriations today, asking for a $113M bump in funding to hire an additional 200 employees next year. appropriations.house.gov/events/hearing… Khan's first question is about the infant formula shortage. "The baby formula shortages we are seeing are deeply concerning and concerning and is something we are watching quite closely. It wasn't inevitable that this one plant being taken off would lead to such outsized effects"

FTC Chair Lina Khan and Dem Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter submitted comments to the ITC yesterday on whether the agency should issue an exclusion order in a case brought by Phillips against France's Thales Group, UK's Telit and China's Quectel Phillips owns several patents essential to industry standards for LTE communications and the three other companies make IoT devices that use those standards.

Some news on the fight between @FTC and @USChamber: The agency has agreed to release its Procedures Manual that describes, among other things, the FTC's voting rules /🧵 uschamber.com/assets/documen… Recap: Last fall, after reporting that former FTC Commissioner Chopra left behind a number of motions when he moved on to the CFPB, I filed a FOIA asking for the Procedures Manual. My FOIA was denied. politico.com/news/2021/11/0…

Yesterday, Sen. Mike Lee took to the Senate floor asking for unanimous consent to pass the State AG venue bill (S 1787) c-span.org/video/?c501501… UC is essentially a voice vote on a bill. If no one objects, the bill goes through. But anyone can object and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the bill's Democratic co-sponsor, did object.

Speaking at Axios event, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) says he is against the tech antitrust legislation because Congress should be focused on tech issues like privacy, data security and content moderation He also expresses concerns about the security of side loading, and says House Judiciary should have had a hearing with DOJ, FBI, NSA about the cyber aspects. (He doesn’t address that side loading already exists on Google’s Android)

Senate votes 51-50 to confirm Democrat Alvaro Bedoya as the FTC's fifth commissioner with VP Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote Because of some paperwork, Bedoya will likely be sworn in either tomorrow or Friday.

Sen. Wicker, top R on Senate Commerce, says he is concerned about the bill to restore the FTC's ability to seek restitution given the current agency leadership. But he also raised the interesting possibility that he and Cantwell (Commerce Chair) could reach an agreement to include something on it in the USICA bill.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions today. So, a short primer on mergers and why antitrust reporters write about them at certain times: 🧵 Any company or person engaging in a transaction valued at more than ~$100M is required to notify the antitrust agencies under a law called Hart-Scott-Rodino, HSR for short. (There are some exemptions to this but it generally holds)