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Posted By: Richard Masson

The antitrust issues here are interesting. The Players' Associations should be the most worried and should argue the hardest. They created the oligopoly by canceling licenses to Fleer and Donruss. I believe Topps or UD purchased those trade names, so the Association would be forced to fund a new competitor to keep the negotiations honest.

It all comes down to market definition, and there is previous case law (Fleer vs. Topps) that probably gives guidance in how to define it. The fact that Topps lost that case implies a narrow market definition, which would not be positive for allowing the takeover. If UD really wanted to buy Topps, they shopuld have done it before the other two companies folded.