Duane Morris Antitrust Class Action Review – 2024

Sherman Act. Id. at *43-44. The court also ruled that, while the claims may vary as to the nature of each of the defendant ’ s participation in the conspiracy, the same evidence will be relied upon by the plaintiffs and members of the class. The court held that plaintiffs’ expert reports demonstrated that the impact was class- wide, based upon evidence that sellers were hindered by constraints on negotiations and were forced to pay uniform and artificially inflated commission rates to buyer-brokers. Id. at *53. The court concluded that the plaintiffs demonstrated the existence of common questions concerning anticompetitive impact that could be answered with common evidence. The court also held that damages could be shown on a class- wide basis because the plaintiffs sought to recover damages equivalent to the amount of the overpayment by class members as opposed to a full refund of the buyer-broker commissions. The court also found that a class action would be the superior method of adjudication here, because the common issues predominated over individual claims. In a price-fixing multidistrict litigation (MDL) out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the court granted a motion for class certification of three classes of pork purchasers who claimed that they paid supracompetitive prices for pork as a result of the defendants’ conspiracy. In the litigation entitled In Re Pork Antitrust Litigation, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53505 (D. Minn. Mar. 29, 2023), the court certified three classes of pork purchasers, including: (i) Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs (DPPs); (ii) Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (Commercial IIPPs or CIIPPs); and (iii) Consumer Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (Consumer IPPs or CIPPs). Each class submitted expert testimony in support of their motion for class certification to show, inter alia , common impact from the conspiracy. DPP ’ s expert conducted a regression analysis, which led the court to conclude that “the structure and characteristics of the pork industry made it conducive to the formation and maintenance of the alleged price-fixing conspiracy.” Id. at *79-80. As to the Consumer IPPS, the court reasoned that their expert testimony demonstrated that the class was capable of proving class-wide impact using common evidence, including market concentration, lack of adequate pork substitutions, and standardization of pork which all made it easier for competing firms to collude. Id. at *82. Finally, the court found that the Commercial IIPPs were also capable of showing class-wide impact via common evidence because Commercial IIPPs presented common evidence of general price inflation, small profit margins, and a higher likelihood of overcharging. Relying on the plaintiffs’ experts, the court concluded that each class had common issues of law and fact that could be resolved on a class-wide basis, including that they “overpaid for pork due to the defendants’ conspiracy to restrict supply and stabilize prices in the pork market.” Id. at *63. The court also determined that the classes satisfied the Rule 23(b) predominance requirement, because there was common evidence that could be used to prove the existence of the alleged antitrust conspiracy and that each class member ’ s injury could be established by the alleged unlawful conduct. Similarly, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada granted the plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class of all persons who competed in one or more live professional UFC-promoted mixed-martial arts bouts taking place or broadcast in the United States from December 16, 2010 to June 30, 2017 in Le, et al. v. Zuffa, LLC , 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138702 (D. Nev. Aug. 9, 2023). The plaintiffs are current or former UFC fighters, and the defendant, Zuffa, LLC does business as UFC and is the preeminent MMA event promoter in the United States. The plaintiffs alleged that UFC used exclusive contracts, market power, and a series of acquisitions to suppress wages paid to UFC fighters during the class period by up to $1.6 billion. The plaintiffs moved to certify two classes, including: (1) all persons who competed in one or more live professional UFC-promoted MMA bouts taking place in the United States from December 16, 2010 to June 30, 2017; and (2) all UFC fighters whose identity was expropriated or exploited by the UFC. The defendant argued that class certification should be denied because the statistical model of the plaintiffs’ expert was flawed as it failed to include everyone in the sport and failed to consider the ways promoters help fighters develop into headliners. The court disagreed. It found that these arguments were

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