According to The New York Times' Monday report, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking a close look at the Apple-Google relationship, to assess whether the companies have violated the antitrust law by having two common members - Google's CEO Eric Schmidt and Genentech's former CEO Art Levinson - on their boards of directors.

Elaborating on the situation under question, the newspaper said that the FTC exploration pertains to the Section 8 provision of The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, according to which "interlocking directorates" are forbidden on the boards of two rival companies.

While most antitrust experts opine that "investigations of interlocking directorates rarely lead to major confrontations between companies and the government," Andrew I. Gavil, an antitrust specialist and a Howard University School of Law professor, said: "Government actions under Section 8 are rare, but they are brought under circumstances when the presence of a common director on competing boards is likely to be anticompetitive."

Though both Apple and Google - makers of web browsers and smartphone software - collaborate and compete, their contending products are hardly ever aimed at the same customers.

Nonetheless, in case the FTC decides to take action against the two companies in the common-directors issue, the common members, Schmidt and Levinson, would have to resign as directors for one of the two companies!