The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently concluded in In re Lamictal Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation that a district court’s reliance on average prices to determine class-wide impact was insufficient. Instead, courts must conduct a rigorous analysis of the facts, evidence and expert testimony at the class certification stage of litigation.
Developments in antitrust class actions over the past year highlight the critical role that the certification decision plays. In the United States, the denial of class certification “may sound the ‘death knell’ of the litigation on the part of plaintiffs.”
To obtain class certification, plaintiffs must satisfy the four requirements in Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy) and at least one of the requirements in Rule 23(b). McDermott’s Nicole L. Castle, David L. Hanselman, Jr. and Steven Vaughn authored the section “United States: Class Action Defense” of Global Competition Review’s America’s Antitrust Review 2020, in which they discuss the requirements of the Rules and offer insight for those seeking class certification.
An extract from GCR’s America’s Antitrust Review 2020, first published in September 2019. The whole publication is available at https://globalcompetitionreview.com/edition/1001388/americas-antitrust-review-2020.
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