Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, recently made headlines by committing to purchase an 18% stake in Weibo, China’s largest microblogging platform, for $586 million. The deal reportedly gives Alibaba an option to increase its stake to 30%. The alliance will allow Alibaba to drive more web traffic to its e-commerce sites. With over 500 million registered… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Transactions
Subscribe to Transactions RSS FeedCraigslist wins first step against screenscapers – lesson for drafting TOUs
Posted in Intellectual Property, Social Media, TransactionsOn April 29, Craigslist was successful in fighting off a motion to dismiss filed by three screenscraping sites (3Taps, Padmapper and Lovely) in its pending litigation in the Northern District of California. In Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc., No. CV 12-03816 (N.D. Cal.), Craigslist sued these sites, alleging that their scraping of Craigslist content violated… Continue Reading
Future Fifty: A UK Initiative to Help High-Growth Companies
Posted in Transactions, UncategorizedBy Matthew Edwards and Jacqueline Clover Last month, we blogged about the launch of the London Stock Exchange High Growth Segment. As part of another programme of measures to support UK and EU start-ups, Future Fifty, a new fast-track programme for businesses, was announced by Chancellor George Osborne on 25 April 2013 and aims to… Continue Reading
Timely Delivery Regulations May Soon Apply to Online Sales
Posted in TransactionsIn a draft report released this week, the Federal Trade Commission staff recommended that the Commission require online merchants to adhere to the same timely delivery requirements as mail- and telephone-based retailers. In 1975, the FTC began requiring mail- and telephone-order merchants to ship their products within the advertised time frame. If the merchant does… Continue Reading
ZTE Signs Android Licensing Deal With Microsoft
Posted in Intellectual Property, Telecommunications, TransactionsOn Tuesday, Microsoft announced a deal with ZTE under which ZTE will license Microsoft’s worldwide patent portfolio for use in cell phones, tablet computers, and other devices running the Android and Chrome operating systems. Although the terms of the ZTE deal were not released, Microsoft’s agreements with other device manufacturers have required a royalty payment… Continue Reading
The German Competition Authority Investigates Price Parity Policy of Amazon.de
Posted in TransactionsThe German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt) recently launched a survey intended to assist it in assessing the impact of the price parity policy of Amazon.de on retailers offering products on online marketplaces (such as eBay). The Bundeskartellamt states that Amazon.de’s price parity policy requires that the price of each product that a retailer offers Amazon.de should not be… Continue Reading
European Commission Consults on Revised Competition Regime for Technology Transfer Agreements
Posted in TransactionsBy John Wileur, Jennifer Boudet, and Miranda Cole The European Commission published for consultation its proposal for revisions to the EU technology transfer competition regime yesterday. The Commission is consulting on its proposals until 17 May 2013. The EU’s approach to the application of competition law to technology transfer agreements is set out in two… Continue Reading
SpectrumWatch: FCC Initiates Review of Mobile Spectrum Holdings Policies
Posted in Spectrum & Mobile, TransactionsTomorrow, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will publish comment deadlines for its recently-released Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that begins the process of reviewing its policies regarding the allocation of mobile spectrum. The full text of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available here. While the simultaneous adoption of proposed rules for an incentive auction of… Continue Reading