Justia Antitrust & Trade Regulation Opinion Summaries

A class action complaint alleged that Honeywell engaged in uncompetitive and illegal conduct to increase its market share of round thermostats and to use its dominant market position to overcharge customers. In 2013, the parties reached a settlement and asked the trial court to preliminarily approve it. The court initially declined to do so because it had concerns about the notice proposed to be sent to class members. Those concerns were subsequently addressed to the court’s satisfaction, and on February 4, 2014, the court preliminarily approved the settlement. The notice of settlement was subsequently published and distributed to class members. The long version was distributed and posted on a website, and the short version was published in various print publications. The trial court found that four objectors to the settlement failed to establish they had standing, but rejected one objection on timeliness grounds and rejected the other three on their merits. The court of appeal affirmed, except for the ruling on standing, finding that the court properly approved the distribution of residual settlement funds and awarded class counsel attorney fees that amounted to 37.5 percent of the settlement fund. View "Roos v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

The U.S. chocolate market is dominated by three companies: Hershey, Mars, and Nestlé USA (the Chocolate Manufacturers). A certified class of direct purchasers of chocolate products and a group of individual plaintiffs alleged that the Chocolate Manufacturers conspired to raise prices on chocolate candy products in the United States three times between 2002 and 2007. They offered evidence of a contemporaneous antitrust conspiracy in Canada. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Third Circuit affirmed, finding that the Canadian conspiracy evidence was ambiguous and did not support an inference of a U.S. conspiracy because the people involved in and the circumstances surrounding the Canadian conspiracy are different from those involved in and surrounding the purported U.S. conspiracy; evidence that the U.S. Chocolate Manufacturers knew of the unlawful Canadian conspiracy was weak and, in any event, related only to Hershey. Other traditional conspiracy evidence was insufficient to create a reasonable inference of a U.S. price-fixing conspiracy. View "In re: Chocolate Confectionary Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

A class action filed against Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a dairy marketing cooperative, Keller’s Creamery, a butter manufacturer, two DFA officers, and two Keller’s officers, alleged a conspiracy to purchase cheese traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in order to help DFA and Keller’s manipulate the price of Class III milk futures. The parties named in the initial complaint reached a settlement (DFA Settlement), which the district court approved in 2014. In 2012, plaintiffs filed an amended class action complaint, adding Schreiber Foods as a defendant and alleging violations of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, the California Cartwright Act, the Commodity Exchange Act, and RICO. The district court dismissed the section 2 Sherman Act claims. In 2013, the court granted Schreiber summary judgment on the remaining claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the district court abused its discretion by limiting discovery to only “high-level” employees and prohibiting the depositions of several employees and in including Schreiber in the DFA Settlement. View "Indriolo Distribs., Inc. v. Schreiber Food, Inc." on Justia Law

Bayer AG and Bayer Corporation (collectively, Bayer) marketed Cipro, an antibiotic. In 1987, Bayer was issued a United States patent on the active ingredient in Cipro. Twelve years before the expiration of the patent, Barr Laboratories, Inc. filed an application to market a generic version of Cipro. Bayer responded with a patent infringement suit, and Barr counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment that the patent was invalid. In 1997, Bayer and Barr entered into a settlement agreement under which Bayer agreed to make a “reverse payment” to Barr in exchange for Barr dropping its patent challenge and consenting to stay out of the market. The settlement produced numerous state and federal antitrust suits. This case arose from nine such coordinated class action suits brought by indirect purchasers of Cipro in California. The complaint alleged that the Bayer-Barr reverse payment settlement violated the Cartwright Act, unfair competition law, an common law prohibition against monopolies. The trial court granted summary judgment for Bayer and Barr. The Court of Appeal affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that parties illegally restrain trade when they privately agree to substitute consensual monopoly in place of potential competition that would have followed a finding of invalidity or noninfringement. View "In re Cipro Cases I & II" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are direct purchasers of traditional blood reagents, used to test blood compatibility between donors and recipients, from Immucor and OrthoClinical (defendants). By 1999, the entire domestic supply of that product was under defendants’ control. In 2000, defendants’ executives attended a trade meeting at which plaintiffs assert the conspiracy began. Defendants soon began rapidly increasing prices. By 2009, many prices had risen more than 2000%. Following a Department of Justice probe, private suits were filed, transferred by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and consolidated. Plaintiffs sought damages under the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. 15, for alleged horizontal price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1. After preliminary approval of plaintiffs’ settlement with Immucor, the court certified plaintiffs’ class of “[a]ll individuals and entities who purchased traditional blood reagents in the United States directly from Defendants ... at any time from January 1, 2000 through the present.” Plaintiffs relied in part on expert testimony to produce their antitrust impact analyses and damages models, which Ortho challenged. The Supreme Court subsequently decided Comcast v. Behrend, which reversed Behrend v. Comcast, on which the district court relied in granting class certification. The Third Circuit vacated, reasoning that the court had no opportunity to consider the implications of Comcast; a court must resolve any Daubert challenges to expert testimony offered to demonstrate conformity with Rule 23 View "In re: Blood Reagents Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

A class of Netflix DVD subscribers filed a consolidated amended class action against Netflix and Walmart, claiming that a promotion agreement whereby Walmart transferred its online DVD-rental subscribers to Netflix and Netflix agreed to promote Walmart’s DVD sales business was anti-competitive. The district court approved of a settlement between Walmart and the class of Netflix subscribers whereby Walmart agreed to pay a total amount of $27,250,000. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in (1) approving the settlement as fair, reasonable, and adequate; (2) certifying the settlement class; and (3) awarding attorneys’ fees of twenty-five percent of the overall settlement fund. View "Frank v. Netflix, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, individuals representing a class of Netflix subscribers, contended that a promotion agreement whereby Walmart transferred its online DVD-rental subscribers to Netflix and Netflix agreed to promote Walmart’s DVD sales business violated the Sherman Act by illegally allocating and monopolizing the online DVD rental market. The district court granted summary judgment for Netflix and awarded Netflix $710,194 in costs. The Ninth Circuit (1) affirmed the district court’s summary judgment, holding that Plaintiffs did not raise a triable issue of fact as to whether they suffered antitrust in-jury-in-fact on a theory that they paid supracompetitive prices for their DVD-rental subscriptions because Netflix would have reduced its subscription price but for its allegedly anticompetitive product; and (2) affirmed in part and reversed in part the award of costs, holding that certain charges for “data upload” and “keywording” were not recoverable as costs for making copies under 28 U.S.C. 1920(4). Remanded for consideration of whether costs were properly awarded for “professional services.” View "Resnick v. Netflix, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action complaint against Philip Morris Companies Inc. and Philip Morris Inc., alleging that Philip Morris violated the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA) by falsely advertising that its Marlboro Lights cigarettes were safer and contained less tar and nicotine than other cigarettes. The circuit court certified Plaintiffs’ class action, concluding that common issues among all class members predominated over any individual issues and that a class action was a superior method of resolving the claim. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s order certifying the class, holding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in certifying the class, as common issues predominated, a class action was a superior method of adjudication, and the class was ascertainable. View "Philip Morris Cos., Inc. v. Miner" on Justia Law

AstraZeneca, which sells a heartburn drug called Nexium, and three generic drug companies (“generic defendants”) that sought to market generic forms of Nexium, entered into settlement agreements in which the generic defendants agreed not to challenge the validity of the Nexium patents and to delay the launch of their generic products. Certain union health and welfare funds that reimburse plan members for prescription drugs (the named plaintiffs) alleged that the settlement agreements constituted unlawful agreements between Nexium and the generic defendants not to compete. Plaintiffs sought class certification for a class of third-party payors, such as the named plaintiffs, and individual consumers. The district court certified a class. Relevant to this appeal, the class included individual consumers who would have continued to purchase branded Nexium for the same price after generic entry. The First Circuit affirmed the class certification, holding (1) class certification is permissible even if the class includes a de minimis number of uninjured parties; (2) the number of uninjured class members in this case was not significant enough to justify denial of certification; and (3) only injured class members will recover. View "In re Nexium Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

Class representatives sued Kentucky real estate firms, alleging violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. 1, by participating in a horizontal conspiracy to fix commissions charged in Kentucky real estate transactions at an anti-competitive rate. The certified class consists of people who sold residential real estate in Kentucky from 2001 to 2005, and used the services of defendants. Several defendants settled. The district court entered summary judgment for remaining defendants, excluding the opinions of plaintiffs’ experts with respect to whether collusion among the defendants was the likely economic explanation of the pricing of commissions. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that although the plaintiffs produced a good deal of circumstantial evidence that would support a theory of collusion, the conduct at issue was also consistent with permissible competition. View "Hyland v. HomeServices of America, Inc." on Justia Law