FTC Approves Final Settlement Charges With Axon Competitor Over Antitrust Dispute
After months of legal challenges on both sides, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a final order that says the nation's largest body camera maker violated antitrust laws when it bought a competitor company.
In its finalized statement, FTC says VieVu's former parent company Safariland entered into anti-competitive agreements with Axon by combining, stifling innovation and competition from smaller companies. Following a public comment period, the final order settles charges that Safariland, LLC, which manufactures and sells equipment for the law-enforcement, military, and recreational markets, entered several anti-competitive agreements with body-worn camera system seller Axon.
The FTC is settled in its complaint against VieVu, but the commission still faces litigation with Axon.
According to the administrative complaint, Safariland entered into these agreements when Axon acquired Safariland’s VieVu body-worn camera systems division. It says the agreements barred Safariland from competing with Axon on all of Axon’s products, limited solicitation of customers and employees by either company, and stifled potential innovation or expansion by Safariland.
First announced in April 2020, the settlement is part of a larger case challenging Axon’s consummated acquisition of former competitor VieVu. Since the Commission’s complaint was issued on Jan. 3, 2020, Safariland and Axon have rescinded the non-compete and non-solicitation provisions that the complaint alleged were anti-competitive. The final order, which settles all charges against Safariland, ensures that Axon and Safariland do not enter into new agreements with similar anticompetitive provisions. Litigation against Axon continues.
In January, Axon sued the FTC claiming the regulatory agency did not have the right to both issue the complaint and then rule on it. Axon told KJZZ that the company agreed to narrow or eliminate its non-compete provisions in the Axon-Safariland acquisition agreements.
"The FTC failed to respond to Axon’s offer and proceeded to make much ado about those provisions in its complaint. The parties therefore unilaterally amended the agreements to take this issue (and Safariland) out of the case, as should have happened pre-suit. The non-competes are non-issues," Axon said in a statement to KJZZ.
The commission approved the anti-competitive order and barred both companies from entering into similar agreements in the future.
