49
votes
Accepted
Can a person start new businesses to compete relentlessly with someone they hate?
Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with setting up shop to compete with someone, even if you hate them, and even if you hope to bring them to financial ruin.
But there are laws surrounding what ...
- 61.8k
49
votes
Accepted
Why can the UK's Competition and Markets Authority tell Facebook to sell Giphy?
My understanding is such: It doesn't matter where the company is incorporated (e.g. incorporated in the US = "American company"). It matters where the company does business.
Companies must ...
- 8,879
46
votes
Accepted
Why are Hollywood studios permitted to collectively bargain with employees, and what are the limits of this apparent antitrust exemption?
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (together with related federal labor laws and regulations) sets the rules for what level unions are organized at in different industries, through the actions of ...
- 239k
19
votes
Can a person start new businesses to compete relentlessly with someone they hate?
City planing (Stadtplanung) may regulate the distance between businesses with similar offers that you have to follow to get a permit.
Number 4 from this official German website seems pretty broadly ...
- 450
17
votes
Is Price Discrimination in the Software Industry legal in the US? (Sneakers resale software case)
The US federal Robinson-Patman Act applies only to a sale of tangible goods to different retailers at different prices in interstate commerce. See "Robinson-Patman Act" at investopedia.
...
- 115k
13
votes
Accepted
Is Price Discrimination in the Software Industry legal in the US? (Sneakers resale software case)
There are a couple of unusual things going on here.
Users buy and sell licenses at way-below-retail prices.
This is very odd in the software world. Software licenses are almost never assignable and ...
- 1,344
12
votes
Is Price Discrimination in the Software Industry legal in the US? (Sneakers resale software case)
Jurisdiction: england-and-wales
If you are purchasing as a consumer (which is implied from your tag) then this could amount to bait advertising under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading ...
- 10.2k
11
votes
Accepted
Are there legal implications to lying about your sponsors?
False statements are generally protected by the First Amendment.
If the video was an obvious gag or work of fiction, in which a reasonable person would understand that you were not truly endorsed, ...
- 61.8k
11
votes
Accepted
What are the most relevant metrics for rating lawyers?
There are no really truly "objective" metrics by which lawyers are ranked.
One service that rates lawyers is Martindale-Hubbell (which is primarily a directory of lawyers) and makes its ...
- 239k
10
votes
What are the most relevant metrics for rating lawyers?
There is considerable doubt as to the value of both h-index and amount of capital, under management as indices of the quality or competence of a professional. The h-index says more about the frequency ...
- 115k
9
votes
Why can the UK's Competition and Markets Authority tell Facebook to sell Giphy?
But since Facebook (now Meta) is an American company, what authority does the UK have to tell Facebook to sell Giphy?
The only authority the CMA needs is UK law. Every country is free to pass any law ...
- 2,347
8
votes
Accepted
Is it legal to make two competing brands of the same product without making the public aware of the common source?
You mean like Unilever, and countless others do?
Yes.
Many, many companies control a stable of brands, often of competing products. This is particularly prevalent in grocery lines (cleaning, food, ...
- 226k
7
votes
Accepted
Why did Microsoft not have to publish the protocol for Skype?
Because the agreement covers the IP relating to a specific list of file-sharing, printer-sharing, and user-management protocols (the Workgroup Server Protocol Program) — basically, things relating to ...
- 717
7
votes
Why can the UK's Competition and Markets Authority tell Facebook to sell Giphy?
There are two issues for any international business:
What jurisdictions govern its operations?
To what extent can those laws be enforced?
Like many businesses, Facebook has a European subsidiary (...
- 3,189
5
votes
Accepted
Is it extortion if someone says they're going to compete with someone in business?
A threat to start a competing business is not extortion.
Federal law prohibts extortion generally as part of the Hobbs Act (18 USC 1951):
The term “extortion” means the obtaining of property from ...
- 61.8k
4
votes
How can huge company mergers that kill all competition be legal?
There are no laws directly regulating merger of two companies. Instead, there are laws against "monopolizing" (and similar expressions). In the US, the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act and the FTC Act ...
- 217k
4
votes
Accepted
Is this a pyramid scheme? If so, how do I stop it?
It seems that your friend is taking part in a multi-level marketing scheme. However, this does not necessarily exclude a pyramid or snow ball scheme.
Both can be illegal in Germany and Switzerland ...
4
votes
Can a person start new businesses to compete relentlessly with someone they hate?
If this is not just hypothetical, Alice might need a German lawyer and not just some folks on an English-language internet forum.
It is common that commercial rental contracts contain a non-...
- 20.5k
4
votes
Does Australia's News Media Bargaining Code prevent Australian news being displayed outside of Australia?
Yes, once law is passed and Facebook is designated under it as a "designated digital platform corporation" then it will be obligated either pay remuneration to all "registered news ...
- 1,266
4
votes
Is it legal for a company to enforce price minimums in the USA?
It didn’t work for Nintendo
Nintendo used to have a policy of setting minimum retail prices for its products. If retailers didn’t comply, Nintendo would decrease or eliminate their supply.
In 1991, ...
- 5,801
3
votes
Accepted
Why would corporate house counsel be limited by unsupervised discovery?
In-house counsel is presumed to be intimately familiar, in a way that retained counsel is not, with both the day-to-day operations of the business and its longer-term strategic planning.
So imagine ...
- 61.8k
3
votes
Is Apple abusing its position with iOS by requiring MacOS to build apps?
"Abuse of a dominant position" is a concept from competition law. In Apple's home jurisdiction, the United States, this field is called antitrust and the concept of abuse of a dominant ...
- 9,356
3
votes
Accepted
Can contractors in the USA publicly encourage each other to charge more?
Under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, there has to be an agreement for there to be price fixing. If the parties do not agree to engage in price-fixing or other anti-competitive behavior, there is no ...
- 61.8k
3
votes
Accepted
What to do about Fake Positive Reviews
This doesn't sound like fraud (against you, at least), but it does sound like an unfair or deceptive trade practice, which is outlawed by Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and perhaps the ...
- 61.8k
3
votes
Are there legal implications to lying about your sponsors?
The person or company could sue you for defamation, and would have to show that they were harmed by your statement (which would not be in the realm of per se defamatory statements). Since this is a ...
- 217k
3
votes
Can a person start new businesses to compete relentlessly with someone they hate?
Provided Bob's business practices are not anti-competitive and there is no direct personal confrontation or attempts to impede Alice's business by interference in her property, it is unlikely that ...
- 95
3
votes
Accepted
If Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are both based in the USA, how does the UK have standing to block the merger?
The basis is set out in the Final Report of the Microsoft / Activision Blizzard Merger Inquiry, in particular Chapters 1 (p24) and 3 (p35-36). The role and powers of the Competition and Markets ...
- 8,512
2
votes
Accepted
Why the deal between IBM and RedHat needs approval from China?
China approved new antitrust laws in 2008. There are always variations in the details from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but China's Anti-Monopoly Law shares the key features of its counterparts in ...
- 61.8k
2
votes
Signed generic NDA re purchase of business - can I start in competition
can I start in competition
Yes. First, non-disclosure and non-compete are two different things. The focus of the clauses you reproduce has to do with non-disclosure.
Second, information that was ...
- 45.5k
2
votes
Can a person start new businesses to compete relentlessly with someone they hate?
I found a Dutch study (https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-29800-XIII-86-b2.pdf), containing an international (Europe-centric) comparison of laws permitting or forbidding the sale of goods at ...
- 186
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible