Antitrust and Consumer Protection
Competition: Fall 2014, Vol. 23, No. 2
Content
- "All Natural" Class Actions: a Plaintiff Perspective
- Appellate Courts Grapple With the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act—Plaintiffs' Perspective
- Cafa: Recent Developments On the Jurisdictional and Settlement Fronts
- Chair's Column
- Defense Perspective: "All Natural" Class Actions
- Editor's Note
- Federal and State Class Antitrust Actions Should Not Be Tried In a Single Trial
- Ftc V. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, Et Al. and the Ftc's Authority To Regulate Companies' Data Security Practices
- Joint Trial of Direct and Indirect Purchaser Claims
- Masthead
- Plaintiff Perspective: the Long Arm of State Antitrust Law
- Recoveries For Violations of Federal and California Antitrust Statutes Should Not Be Apportioned
- The Ftaia Limits the Extraterritorial Reach of State Antitrust Laws
- The Misapplication of Associated General Contractors To Cartwright Act Claims
- The Problem of Duplicative Recovery Under Federal and State Antitrust Law
- Why Associated General Contractors Should Be Used To Assess Standing In Cartwright Act Cases
- So Your Suppliers Conspired Against You: An Antitrust Class Action Opt-out Primer
SO YOUR SUPPLIERS CONSPIRED AGAINST YOU: AN ANTITRUST CLASS ACTION OPT-OUT PRIMER
By Paula Blizzard, Justina Sessions, and Daniel Gordon1
I. INTRODUCTION
You’ve just learned that one of your company’s suppliers has pled guilty to an antitrust violation. A quick internet search reveals that international government antitrust authorities raided several suppliers a few months ago. And hot on the heels of the guilty pleas, a series of civil class action suits are filed against your supplier and others. The class actions may already have been consolidated into a Multi-District Litigation ("MDL"), or consolidation may be imminent. At first it may be difficult to believe. How could trusted and long-term suppliers conspire against a major customer? It may be hard to grasp, but the reality is that it happens. If there have been guilty pleas, then almost certainly your company has been overcharged for products. The question is: what to do about it?
Large companies are generally far more used to being defendants than plaintiffs, and figuring out how to proceed as an antitrust victim can be unchartered territory. At the outset, the company’s options and avenues for recovery must be assessed and preserved. One of the most important decisions may be whether and when to opt out of civil class action lawsuits. Large purchasers often opt out of antitrust class actions in favor of pursuing individual recovery. Those who have taken their individual claims to trial have achieved mixed results. Far more commonly, large purchasers pursue their own private resolution with antitrust defendants.