FTC Defeats Qualcomm in Fight over Monopoly in Smartphone Chips
United States District Judge Lucy Koh ruled on May 22, 2019, after a 10-day bench trial in January, that Qualcomm has and abused “monopoly chip power”. Qualcomm Findings and Conclusions 5-22-19.
AT&T Wins Permission to Marry Time Warner
Judge Richard Leon, of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled today that the United States failed to persuade him to block AT&T’s bid to acquire Time Warner under antitrust law. See the 172-page opus here: AT&T Opinion 6-12-18
LIBOR Over-the-Counter Plaintiffs Win Class Certification of Price-Fixing Claims Against Banks
Today, United States District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan issued LIBOR VII, in which the court granted class certification under Rule 23(b)(3) to a class of plaintiffs who bought over-the-counter instruments that paid interest in terms of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and who allege that LIBOR-setting banks conspired to suppress LIBOR
Multiples for Pharma Buyers Pursuing Opt-Out Antitrust Claims
Existential threshold
The number of companies that can bring treble-damages claims against drug manufacturers for violating federal antitrust law has dwindled. The scarcity has grown so acute that last week it crossed an existential threshold.
Continue Reading
Pharma Buyers Too Few for Class
U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ruled on August 28, 2017 that a class of 24 to 25 direct purchasers did not satisfy the “numerosity” requirement of Rule 23(a)(1) for class certification. Florence Drug Co. of Florence, Inc. v. Cephalon, Inc., No. 06-c-1797, ECF 1072 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 28, 2017), on remand from In
Dieselgate — Antitrust Edition
You will recall that two years ago Volkswagen got in $14.7 billion worth of class action trouble for rigging software in its diesel cars to fake compliance with U.S. emission standards. The
We now learn that Volkswagen didn’t act alone.
Continue Reading
A Trial Lawyer for the Supreme Court?
In the last quarter-century and more, no current member of the Supreme Court tried a lawsuit of any kind to a judge or jury. Almost none of the justices has ever tried a civil case to verdict. And before their honors became appellate judges, only one of their number served as a full-time trial judge.
Does the justices’ nearly total lack of trial-lawyer chops matter? Has the almost utter absence of actual trial experience in fact degraded the quality of civil justice? And will confirming the nomination of a former trial lawyer like Neil Gorsuch make a difference?
Continue Reading
No Class?
A question of numbers
Class actions can save courts and parties a lot of time and money. But what if the class includes just a few members? How much time and money will the class action device save then?
The Third Circuit grappled with that “numerosity” question in In re Modafinil Antitrust Litig., 837 F.3d 238 (3d Cir. 2016).
The answer it gave — that a class with 20+/- mostly big members may not pass the test — could reshape how courts handle antitrust cases worth billions of dollars.
Bad News for Price-Fixers
A dilemma
A price-fixer cheats his buyers, but he may also do something worse — frighten them into doing nothing about it.
Last week, the Third Circuit made a ruling that will calm victims’ fears. Instead of bringing a claim they don’t want to prosecute, the court held, they may freely assign it to someone