Anti-trust: Curiouser and Curiouser

Here’s the chronology for the Blackboard anti-trust investigation as far as we know so far:

• May 14th: The U.S. Department of Justice contacts Desire2Learn and informs them that they are investigating the merger.
• May 22nd: According to their subsequent legal filing, Blackboard “received a voluntary request for information” from DoJ.
• May 26th: Desire2Learn goes public with what they know about the investigation.
• May 27th: Blackboard files an 8-K statement informing investors that they have received the request from the DoJ.

A couple of things are odd about this chronology. First, is it really plausible that DoJ didn’t contact Blackboard until eight days after they contacted D2L? Blackboard is careful in the language of their filing; they don’t indicate that the request for information on the 22nd was their first contact from the Department of Justice. Second, is it normal for Blackboard to wait until 5 days after the contact (granting that three of those days were a holiday weekend) to file the 8-K?

I’m certainly not an expert in this area of the law, so if any readers out there can provide insight into what could be going on here and to what degree it matters, please do share. For that matter, if anyone out there has anti-trust experience and can explain what DoJ’s options are going forward, that would be very helpful.

Meanwhile I have heard from a surprising number of LMS vendors that they have been contacted by DoJ. Clearly, the government is taking this seriously. In most cases, these appear to be just initial contacts. I haven’t heard yet from any schools, although Jeff Young’s reporting at The Chronicle indicates that schools are being contacted. Again, if you are at a school and have had some contact with the DoJ over this issue, please let me know.