The FTC said July 30 that it dropped the case after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an earlier ruling in the case. The commission filed a complaint against AbbVie in 2014 claiming that it and its partner, Besins Healthcare, illegally filed baseless patent infringement lawsuits against potential generic competitors to block competition, thereby blocking patients’ access to lower-cost versions of AndroGel.
It also alleged AbbVie settled one of its infringement lawsuits with an illegal reverse-payment agreement.
“The commission is deeply disappointed that we cannot compensate consumers who were the victims of AbbVie’s and Besins’ anticompetitive conduct, despite proving that the companies engaged in illegal sham litigation,” Holly Vedova, acting director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a news release.
A district court in June 2018 dismissed the FTC’s reverse-payment claim, but found AbbVie and Besins liable for filing sham litigation in violation of antitrust laws. It awarded the FTC $493.7 million in monetary relief to return to consumers. But the Supreme Court determined that the FTC doesn’t have the authority to collect monetary relief for consumers in competition cases.
Read the FTC’s full news release here.
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