A product-review platform provider that bought its nearest rival acted...

San Francisco-based PowerReviews in June “substantially lessened competition” and harmed innovation, and that the acquiring company didn’t file the required Hart-Scott-Rodino notice to the department. Both companies provide product-review platforms to manufacturers and retailers that let consumers review their products online. “Without competitive pressure from PowerReviews, Bazaarvoice will be able to increase prices to retailers and manufacturers for its product ratings and reviews platform,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Antitrust Division: The suit “demonstrates that transactions that are not reported to us are not immune from scrutiny.” Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews were such fierce competitors before the acquisition that “many retailers and manufacturers received substantial price discounts,” Justice said: It quoted one Bazaarvoice co-founder’s internal document that the acquisition would help stem “price erosion” and remove its “primary competitor.” Bazaarvoice’s website says (http://xrl.us/boaeib) it helps “over 30 percent of the world’s leading global brands ... to turn social data into smarter business decisions.” Its clients include Panasonic, About.com, AutoTrader.com, Best Buy, Big Fish Games, Cisco, Dell, GoDaddy.com and Hewlett-Packard, among others. A Bazaarvoice spokesman told us his company gave Justice “extensive documents, data, and information” showing the PowerReviews acquisition was “procompetitive,” explaining for “more than six months” there’s “robust and ample competition” for what it called “social commerce engagement tools.” Justice has an “overly narrow definition of the product market,” he said, calling ratings and reviews “one of many tools” in a social-commerce strategy. Justice based its case on a “series of dated documents” that were “taken out of context” and “ignored virtually all of our recent ordinary course documents and substantial economic evidence,” the spokesman said. Bazaarvoice wasn’t required to report the transaction under Hart-Scott-Rodino because PowerReviews was “so small” -- bringing in less than $12 million revenue in its most recent fiscal year -- “it failed to meet the government’s own required ’size-of-person test'” for mandatory notification and preclearance, he said. Bazaarvoice expects to be “fully vindicated” in court, he said.