Seldom does Blawgletter get the pleasure of reading an Intriguing and Forceful Analysis of a recent and important court of appeals decision. Our dear friend Sam Simon blessed us with his views about In re Ins. Brokerage Antitrust Litig., No. 07-4046 (3d Cir. Aug. 16, 2010) (post here), today. And, with his kind
Third Circuit
Plausible Conspiracies After Twombly; Third Circuit Weighs In
By Barry Barnett on
The Third Circuit came out last week with a 200-page rumination on the post-Twombly plausibility of conspiracies under section 1 of the Sherman Act (and the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). In re Ins. Brokerage Antitrust Litig., No. 07-4046 (3d Cir. Aug. 16, 2010).
The court upheld dismissal of hub-and-spoke conspiracy claims that…
Bad News for Auditors from Third Circuit
By Barry Barnett on
May auditors who help a company's officers disguise their cooking of its books avoid liability to the company (now insolvent) by imputing the officers' knowledge of the fraud to the company?
By saying the officers' fraud conferred at least a "peppercorn" of benefit to the company?
The Third Circuit this week held that its previous yes responses must give way to…
Third Circuit Tosses Price Discrimination Claim
By Barry Barnett on
The Robinson-Patman Act came out of the Great Depression. It aimed to stop big department stores from using their buying power to crush mom and pop stores with lower retail prices. But its language applied broadly, barring any substantial discrimination in price.
Courts have tried to manage the reach of RPA by expansively applying statutory defenses, creating…