In In re: Crop Inputs Antitrust Litigation, No. 24-3104, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of an antitrust class action alleging that suppliers of seeds, pesticides, and other agricultural inputs conspired to refuse to sell their products to direct-to-consumer e-commerce platforms.  According to plaintiffs, defendants—which included manufacturers, wholesalers, and authorized retailers—agreed to boycott the platforms to prevent the emergence of price transparency, which defendants allegedly feared farmers could use to negotiate lower prices.

Affirming the district court, the Eighth Circuit determined that plaintiffs’ complaint failed for two main reasons.  First, many of plaintiffs’ factual allegations referred to the “Manufacturer,” “Wholesaler,” or “Retailer Defendants” collectively, rather than specifically identifying “who did what, to whom (or with whom), where, and when.”  See D’Augusta v. Am. Petroleum Inst., 117 F.4th 1094, 1104 (9th Cir. 2024).  Those generalized allegations, the Court explained, constituted “impermissible group pleading” that did not “give fair notice to each defendant of the claim being made against it” and therefore could not help the complaint survive a motion to dismiss.  

Second, the Court determined that plaintiffs’ remaining factual allegations failed to plead parallel conduct.  Although plaintiffs had alleged one defendant or another had engaged in various actions in service of the alleged boycott—such as sending a threatening letter or making a false statement to customers—the complaint did not allege that more than one defendant engaged in similar conduct around the same time.  Accordingly, the complaint as a whole failed to plausibly plead that defendants collectively agreed to boycott the e-commerce platforms. 

The Eight Circuit’s decision shows that plaintiffs alleging an antitrust conspiracy must not only specify the relevant acts or omissions committed by each defendant individually, but must also connect each defendant’s behavior to the allegedly parallel actions of the other defendants to plausibly plead an unlawful agreement under the Sherman Act.