Justia Antitrust & Trade Regulation Opinion Summaries

First Western Capital Management (“FWCM”), and its parent company First Western Financial, Inc. (collectively, “First Western”), sought a preliminary injunction against former employee Kenneth Malamed for misappropriating trade secrets. In 2008, FWCM acquired Financial Management Advisors, LLC (“FMA”), an investment firm Malamed founded in 1985 primarily to serve high net worth individuals and entities such as trusts and foundations. After selling FMA, Malamed worked for FWCM from 2008 until FWCM terminated him on September 1, 2016. In early 2016, a committee of FWCM directors began discussing the possibility of selling FWCM to another company. Although Malamed was not involved in these discussions, he learned about the potential sale and, in a meeting with other FWCM officers, expressed his displeasure with the buyer under consideration. Following the meeting, Malamed emailed his assistant asking her to print three copies of his client book, which contained the names and contact information for approximately 5,000 FWCM contacts. Of these contacts, 331 were current FWCM clients and roughly half of those had been clients of FMA before First Western acquired it. The printout also contained spreadsheets that included, among other information, client names, the total market value of their holdings under management, and the fees being charged by FWCM. On September 1, 2016, shortly after Malamed’s employment contract expired, First Western fired him. That same day, First Western served him with a complaint it had filed in federal court a month earlier, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”), and the Colorado Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“CUTSA”), breach of employment contract, and breach of fiduciary duty. First Western moved for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent Malamed from soliciting FWCM’s clients. The district court excused First Western from demonstrating irreparable harm (one of the four elements a party seeking injunctive relief is typically required to prove) and granted the injunction. As applied here, the Tenth Circuit determined that if First Western could not show irreparable harm, it cannot obtain injunctive relief. The district court should not have entered the preliminary injunction here. View "First Western Capital v. Malamed" on Justia Law

Cox Cable subscribers cannot access premium cable services unless they also rent a set-top box from Cox. A class of plaintiffs in Oklahoma City sued Cox under antitrust laws, alleging Cox had illegally tied cable services to set-top-box rentals in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits illegal restraints of trade. Though a jury found that Plaintiffs had proved the necessary elements to establish a tying arrangement, the district court disagreed. In granting Cox’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) motion, the court determined that Plaintiffs had offered insufficient evidence for a jury to find that Cox’s tying arrangement "foreclosed a substantial volume of commerce in Oklahoma City to other sellers or potential sellers of set-top boxes in the market for set- top boxes." After careful consideration, the Tenth Circuit ultimately agreed with the district court and affirmed. View "Healy v. Cox Communications" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit joined the Fourth and Sixth Circuits in holding that the collateral-order doctrine does not allow an immediate appeal of an order denying a dismissal motion based on state-action immunity. In this case, SolarCity filed a federal antitrust suit against the Power District, alleging that the Power District had attempted to entrench its monopoly by setting prices that disfavored solar power providers. The district court denied Power District's motion to dismiss the complaint based on the state-action immunity doctrine. Accordingly, the panel dismissed the interlocutory appeal based on lack of jurisdiction. View "SolarCity Corp. v. Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District" on Justia Law

The consolidated appeals involve allegations that the companies holding the patents for Lipitor and Effexor XR delayed entry into the market by generic versions of those drugs by engaging in an overarching monopolistic scheme that involved fraudulently procuring and enforcing the underlying patents and then entering into a reverse-payment settlement agreement with a generic manufacturer. In 2013, the Supreme Court recognized that reverse payment schemes can violate antitrust laws and that it is normally not necessary to litigate patent validity to answer the antitrust question. The district judge dismissed most of plaintiffs’ claims. The Third Circuit remanded after rejecting an argument that plaintiffs’ allegations required transfer of the appeals to the Federal Circuit, which has exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from civil actions “arising under” patent law, 28 U.S.C. 1295(a)(1). Not all cases presenting questions of patent law necessarily arise under patent law; here, patent law neither creates plaintiffs’ cause of action nor is a necessary element to any of plaintiffs’ well-pleaded claims. The court remanded one of the Lipitor appeals, brought by a group of California pharmacists and involving claims solely under California law, for jurisdictional discovery and determination of whether remand to state court was appropriate. View "In re: Lipitor Antitrust Litigation" on Justia Law

The district court certified eight classes, consisting of persons in Illinois and Missouri who take eye drops manufactured by six pharmaceutical companies for treatment of glaucoma. Plaintiffs claimed that the defendants’ eye drops are unnecessarily large and wasteful, in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, 815 ILCS 505/1, and the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, Mo. Rev. Stat. 407.010, so that the price of the eye drops is excessive and that the large eye drops have a higher risk of side effects. There was no claim that members of the class have experienced side effects or have been harmed because they ran out of them early. The Seventh Circuit vacated with instructions to dismiss. The court noted possible legitimate reasons for large drops, the absence of any misrepresentation or collusion, and that defendants’ large eye drops have been approved by the FDA for safety and efficacy. “You cannot sue a company and argue only ‘it could do better by us,’” nor can one bring a suit in federal court without pleading that one has been injured. The plaintiffs allege only “disappointment.” View "Eike v. Allergan, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2010, Lenox MacLaren Surgical Corporation (“Lenox”) sued several related corporations, Medtronic, Inc.; Medtronic PS Medical, Inc. (“PS Medical”); Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc. (“MSD, Inc.”); and Medtronic Sofamor Danek Co. Ltd. (“MSD Japan”) (collectively, “Defendants”), for monopolization and attempted monopolization in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act. Lenox alleged that Defendants engaged in illegal activity to advance a coordinated, anticompetitive scheme in which a related non-party, Medtronic Sofamor Danek USA, Inc. (“MSD USA”), also participated. Lenox sued MSD USA in 2007 on claims arising from the same set of facts. In this case, Lexon challenged the district court’s disposition of Defendants’ second motion for summary judgment, which claimed that Lenox could not prove the elements of its antitrust claims against any of the named Defendants individually, and that Defendants cannot be charged collectively with the conduct of MSD USA or of each other. They also argued that the doctrine of claim preclusion barred Lenox’s claims, in light of the prior proceeding against MSD USA. The district court granted summary judgment, holding that because Lenox could not establish each of the elements of an antitrust claim against any one defendant, or establish a conspiracy among them, Lenox’s claims failed as a matter of law. Lenox appealed. But finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Lenox MacLaren Surgical Corp. v. Medtronic" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, purchasers of iPhones and iPhone apps, filed suit against Apple, alleging that Apple has monopolized and attempted to monopolize the market for iPhone apps. The court held that plaintiffs lacked antitrust standing pursuant to Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois. The court agreed with the Third and Tenth Circuits and read Rule 12(g)(2) in light of the general policy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, expressed in Rule 1. The court concluded that any error committed by the district court in ruling on Apple’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for lack of statutory standing under Illinois Brick, was harmless. The court explained that Apple is a distributor of the iPhone apps, selling them directly to purchasers through its App Store. Because Apple is a distributor, plaintiffs have standing under Illinois Brick to sue Apple for allegedly monopolizing and attempting to monopolize the sale of iPhone apps. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Pepper v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law

This case centered on a dispute between SOLIDFX, LLC, a software development company, and Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing that developed aviation terminal charts. SOLIDFX sued Jeppesen, asserting antitrust, breach-of-contract, and tort claims. The district court granted partial summary judgment on the antitrust claims, but the remaining claims proceeded to trial. A jury ultimately found in favor of SOLIDFX and awarded damages in excess of $43 million. Jeppesen appealed, challenging only the district court’s ruling that SOLIDFX could recover lost profits on its contract claims. SOLIDFX cross-appealed the district court’s summary judgment order in favor of Jeppesen on the antitrust claims. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded the License Agreement at issue here unambiguously precluded the recovery of lost profits, irrespective of whether they were direct or consequential damages. But the Court also determined that, even if the agreement could be read to allow the recovery of direct lost profits, the lost profits awarded by the jury here were consequential damages and therefore not recoverable. Because the Court held that SOLIDFX was contractually precluded from recovering the amounts awarded for lost profits, it did not reach the question of whether SOLIDFX proved those lost profits with reasonable certainty, nor did it address the admissibility of expert testimony offered by SOLIDFX to establish the amount of its lost profits. Finally, the Court agreed with the district court that Jeppesen was entitled to summary judgment on SOLIDFX’s antitrust claims. View "Solidfx v. Jeppesen Sanderson" on Justia Law

Eaton manufactures truck transmissions for sale to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), which offer “data books,” listing the options for truck parts. Customer choose among the options; the OEM sources the parts from the manufacturers and uses them to build custom trucks then sold to that customer. Eaton was a near-monopolist in supplying Class 8 truck transmissions. In 1989, ZF emerged as a competitor. Eaton allegedly sought to retain its market share by entering agreements with the OEMs, with increasingly large rebates on Eaton transmissions based on the percentage of transmissions a given OEM purchased from Eaton as opposed to ZF. ZF closed in 2003. In 2006, ZF successfully sued Eaton for antitrust violations. Separately, indirect purchasers who bought trucks from OEMs’ immediate customers brought a class action; that case was dismissed. In this case, Tauro attempt to represent direct purchasers in an antitrust suit was rejected because Tauro never directly purchased a Class 8 truck from the OEMs, but rather purchased trucks from R&R, a direct customer that expressly assigned Tauro its direct purchaser antitrust claims. The Third Circuit reversed. An antitrust claim assignment need not be supported by bargained-for consideration in order to confer direct purchaser standing on an indirect purchaser; it need only be express. That requirement was met. The presumption that a motion to intervene by a proposed class representative is timely if filed before the class opt-out date applies in this pre-certification context. View "Wallach v. Eaton Corp" on Justia Law

Hartig filed a putative class action, alleging antitrust violations involving medicated eyedrops manufactured by the Defendants. Hartig claimed that the Defendants’ wrongful suppression of generic competition resulted in supracompetitive pricing of those eyedrops. Although not a direct purchaser of the medications, Hartig claimed it had standing to sue because of an assignment of rights from Amerisource, a direct purchaser. The district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that an anti-assignment clause in a distribution agreement between Allergan (the assignee of the named inventors) and Amerisource barred any assignment of antitrust claims from Amerisource to Hartig. The Third Circuit vacated; the district court erred in treating antitrust standing as an issue of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court distinguished between Article III standing and antitrust standing and stated that, when the correct procedures are followed, the court may consider the impact of the anti-assignment clause. View "Hartig Drug Co., Inc v. Senju Pharma. Co., Ltd" on Justia Law