Now it's time for our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, exploring legal issues in the news. And Today Bloomberg Law hoos student Rosso and Greg Store discussed a Department of Justice investigation into advertising giant WPP. They speak with Daniel Crane, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Jennifer Ree, a senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. Jen there have been years of tensions between big advertisers and
their ad agencies. Was this investigation by Justice propelled in any way by a June study commissioned by the Association of National Advertisers. What's been reported, at least we think is that a report by this UM, this company K two that was commissioned by the Association of National Advertisers. This is a trade association that represents the brand companies
of the advertisers. UM suggested that there was a lot of non transparent activity going on in these ad agencies that wasn't really working out to the benefit of the advertisers,
but working out to the benefit of the agencies. And it seems that they mostly we're focusing on media companies, media suppliers, but and not so much production, which is what the DJ is looking at here, but that they did have some findings that might not have fallen into their final report that suggested there may be this kind of bid rigging activity going on in which the ad agencies agree with some of these outside production companies not to compete essentially UM and try to get the business
in house because they own some of their own production facilities in house. Daniel Crane. Some of if I understand this correctly, is the idea that there are separate markets for the advertising contracts UH in general and for the video productions, so that if an AD agency gets a contract it can't necessarily use its own production facilities. Is
that the idea right? So, the idea is that there is a separate market for the production of advertisements, and that can be done by the vertically integrated shop of an ad agency or it could be done outside by
an independent video production company. As I understand it from media reports, the investigation is centering on allegations that the ad agencies, which already we're dealing with clients to sell advertising UH in media, had some sort of a kickback or collusive agreement with independent video production companies that the video production companies would submit bogus bids to the client, and that the ad agency would therefore be able to come in and win the business for its own in
house video production shop, but doing so at inflated prices. And that's Daniel Crane, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Jennifer Ree, a senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, speaking with Bloomberg Laho stoom Grosso and Greg Sture. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall Street Time here on Bloomberg Radio Now.
Among the top legal stories from Bloomberg, Bloomberg Law, judges granted preliminary approval to President elect Donald Trump's twenty five million dollars settlement with former Trump University students. The former students claimed they were defrauded by the university. The settlement will reimburse them about half of what they paid for the real estate seminars. The judge says that's fair, inadequate,
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