Dallas Business Lawyer Blog

Mannatech Wages Legal Battles For Unfair Competition In Texas

Nutritional supplement company Mannatech Inc. pulled another competitor’s product off the shelf on Tuesday, winning a court injunction in Dallas federal court to halt production of a nutritional powder based on its patented processes.

It’s the latest in a string of courthouse wins for Coppell-based Mannatech, which has won nine permanent injunctions that have taken 17 competing products off the market.

It’s a switch for the direct-selling company, which in its adolescence, spent time in court fending off questions from disgruntled shareholders and battling claims with the Texas attorney general that its health claims couldn’t be supported.

As Mannatech has matured, it is learning to behave more like a multimillion-dollar corporation rather than a rapidly growing sales organization.

For for more information regarding business disputes, visit www.businesslawyerdallastexas.com

 

FTC Accuses Intel of Unfair Competition

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued the chip maker Intel, accusing it of using its dominant market position “to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly.”

In its complaint, the F.T.C. accused the chip maker of a systematic campaign to block rivals from selling their microchips by cutting off access to the market.

The filing goes beyond charges in cases brought recently by European regulators and the New York state attorney general in focusing on video graphics chips and software in addition to Intel’s core market, the microprocessors that sit at the heart of personal computers. Intel supplies about 80 percent of the PC microprocessor chips worldwide.

The F.T.C. move, according to Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University, is “very significant because it is broader in scope than any of the current cases.”

In all, the F.T.C. contends that Intel engaged in a pattern of conduct that “put the brakes on superior competitive products that threatened” its microchip market share.

“Intel has engaged in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly,” said Richard A. Feinstein, director of the agency’s Bureau of Competition. “It’s been running roughshod over the principles of fair play and the laws protecting competition on the merits.”