Justia Antitrust & Trade Regulation Opinion Summaries

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

This antitrust class action stemmed from an allegation that Dow Chemical Company conspired with its competitors to fix prices for polyurethane chemical products. Over Dow’s objection, the district court certified a plaintiff class including all industrial purchasers of polyurethane products during the alleged conspiracy period. The action went to trial, and the jury returned a verdict against Dow. The district court entered judgment for the plaintiffs, denying Dow’s motions for decertification of the class and judgment as a matter of law. Dow raised four issues on appeal, all of which the Tenth Circuit rejected. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court. View "In re: Urethane AntiTrust Litigation" on Justia Law

Appellee, Peter Rosenow, brought a class-action complaint individually and on behalf of similarly situated persons against Appellants, Alltel Corporation and Alltel Communications, Inc. (collectively, Alltel), alleging violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and unjust enrichment arising from Alltel’s imposition of an early termination fee on its cellular-phone customers. Alltel filed a motion seeking to compel arbitration based on an arbitration clause contained in its “Terms and Conditions.” The circuit court denied the motion, concluding that Alltel’s arbitration provision lacked mutuality. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the circuit court did not err in finding that a lack of mutuality rendered the instant arbitration agreement invalid. View "Alltel Corp. v. Rosenow" on Justia Law

Suits consolidated under 28 U.S.C. 1407 alleged antitrust violations of price fixing and dividing markets by the manufactures of cooling compressors. The district court dismissed the claims of some of the indirect-buyer plaintiffs and declined to enter a final judgment under Civil Rule 54(b) or to certify an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1292. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that the order did not amount to a “final” decision from which the dismissed plaintiffs may appeal. When a single action involves multiple claims or multiple parties, a ruling that disposes of only some claims or only some parties is ordinarily not “final;” the rule is not different for consolidated multi-district cases. View "In re: Refrigerant Compressors Antitrust Litigation" on Justia Law