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Dun & Bradstreet Settles FTC Charges that 2009 Acquisition was Anticompetitive

FTC Order Requires Dun & Bradstreet to Divest Previously Acquired Marketing Data Business to Restore Competition

  • “The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation will divest certain key assets as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that is designed to address the competitive harm caused by its acquisition of Quality Educational Data (QED), its nearest rival in the education marketing business. Prior to the acquisition, QED was a division of Scholastic, Inc. In May 2010 the FTC sued Dun & Bradstreet, alleging that the combination of the two companies created a near monopoly, in violation of federal law, when Dun & Bradstreet acquired more than 90 percent of the market for kindergarten through twelfth grade marketing data (K-12 data), which is used to market books, educational materials, and other products to teachers and other educators nationwide. The $29 million acquisition was below the threshold that would have triggered pre-merger filing requirements, and therefore the companies were not required to notify the FTC and Department of Justice.”
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