Antitrust

On October 24, a Nevada federal court dismissed a class action complaint against operators of hotels on the Las Vegas Strip alleging that defendants’ use of similar room-pricing algorithms constituted a per se illegal price-fixing agreement under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.  The decision, Gibson v. MGM Resorts International, No. 2:23-cv-00140 (D. Nev. 2023), rejected plaintiffs’ allegations of a per se illegal agreement among competitors or a hub and spoke conspiracy but granted leave to amend to plead a Rule of Reason theory. 

Algorithmic pricing refers to the use of software tools, typically offered by vendors, that include historical and/or contemporaneous data to dynamically propose prices to businesses.  In Gibson, plaintiffs alleged that Las Vegas hotel operators Caesars, Treasure Island, Wynn, and MGM violated Section 1 by “agreeing to all use pricing software marketed by the same company” resulting in “higher prices for hotel rooms than the market could otherwise support.”  …

Continue Reading Brief Stay: Vegas Hotel Case Dismissed

On October 25, 2023, the Eleventh Circuit overruled several objections to a $2.67 billion antitrust class action settlement agreement that was the product of years of negotiations between Blue Cross and classes of its past and present health plan subscribers.  Two objections, raised by Home Depot, focused on (i) the settlement’s release of antitrust claims arising from Blue Cross’s conduct, and, relatedly, (ii) the adequacy of representation for an injunctive class of plaintiffs who might have future claims based on that conduct.…

Continue Reading Eleventh Circuit Upholds Blue Cross Blue Shield Subscriber Settlement Over Antitrust and Public Policy Objections

The Third Circuit recently affirmed the denial of class certification to end-payor health plans that alleged that the defendant’s “pay-for-delay” settlement of patent infringement litigation inflated prices on a prescription drug.  In doing so, the court reaffirmed that named plaintiffs must present an administratively feasible mechanism to ascertain whether putative class members fall within the proposed class definition and thus took sides in a growing circuit split on that issue.  See In re Niaspan Antitrust Litig., — F.4th –, 2023 WL 3243532 (3d Cir. 2023).…

Continue Reading Third Circuit Defends Ascertainability Requirement in Affirming Denial of Class Certification

A Minnesota federal court recently certified several classes of plaintiffs asserting antitrust claims against America’s largest pork producers and integrators.  In re Pork Antitrust Litig., C.A. No. 18-1776 (D. Minn. Mar. 29, 2023).

Each class of plaintiff asserted a per se theory of harm that defendants conspired to limit the supply of pork and…