US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Archives

Fourth Circuit Holds Per-Se Rule Does Not Apply in Bid-Rigging Case

WHAT HAPPENED

A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned an executive’s bid-rigging antitrust conviction, holding that the district court erred in applying the per se standard to the executive’s alleged bid-rigging conduct.

The executive, Brent Brewbaker, rigged bids between his former employer, Contech, and its distributor, Pomona Pipe Products. The Fourth Circuit found that while Contech and Pomona both submitted competing bids for North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) projects, and Contech coordinated with Pomona to make Contech’s bids slightly higher priced, this conduct could not be deemed inherently unlawful under prior precedent because the entities had a manufacturer-distributor arrangement and were not simply direct competitors. In particular, the Fourth Circuit noted that manufacturer-distributor relationships such as the one between Contech and Pomona do not inherently lead to anticompetitive harm and may enhance competition.

Therefore, given the kind of relationship Contech and Pomona had, the Fourth Circuit held that the district court should have analyzed the conduct under the rule of reason to weigh the competitive implications of the parties’ agreement and conduct.

BACKGROUND

Contech manufactured and sold aluminum products.
Pomona distributed Contech’s aluminum products and was Contech’s exclusive dealer in North Carolina.
NCDOT used a bidding process for aluminum structure projects throughout the state. These projects required both the aluminum product and the services to install the aluminum structures.
Contech, Pomona and a third company were the consistent bidders for the NCDOT projects.
When either Contech or Pomona won a bid for a project, each would fulfill its contract using the other’s supply or services. Pomona, therefore, served as Contech’s “dealer” with Contech supplying Pomona the aluminum it needed to use in the projects Pomona eventually won; vice versa, Pomona provided necessary services to Contech when Contech won a bid. Neither Contech nor Pomona could win a bid without the products or services of the other.
In 2019, Brewbaker took charge of Contech’s bidding for these NCDOT projects and began intentionally submitting losing bids to enable Pomona to win by first asking for Pomona’s total bid price and then adding a markup to Contech’s bid price before submitting the bid to NCDOT.
DOJ alleged that Contech and Pomona engaged in bid rigging because they directly competed against each other’s separate bids. Brewbaker and Contech were indicted for violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
Contech pleaded guilty to bid rigging and one fraud count.
Brewbaker proceeded to trial, and the district court convicted him of bid rigging and five other fraud-related counts (which were not overturned by the Fourth Circuit), upon concluding that Contech and Pomona’s conduct fell squarely within the definition of antitrust “bid rigging” under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

HOW THE DECISION WAS REACHED

The Fourth Circuit explained that the rule of reason standard is the default framework used to scrutinize most business practices under the antitrust laws. It weighs [...]

Continue Reading

Third Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment for Defendant in Titanium Dioxide Price-Fixing Case

WHAT HAPPENED:

On October 2, 2017, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unsealed its opinion in Valspar Corp. v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., No. 16-1345 2017 WL 4364317 (3d Cir. Sept. 14, 2017) in which the court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant on the grounds that plaintiff lacked sufficient evidence to allege a conspiracy to fix prices.
Valspar alleged that titanium dioxide suppliers engaged in price-fixing, citing evidence that the manufacturers announced 31 price increases in a twelve year period and other circumstantial evidence. at *5. The parties agreed that the titanium dioxide market is oligopolistic, with a handful of firms, substantial barriers to entry, and no substitute products. Id. at *1.
After Valspar settled with all defendants but DuPont, the latter moved for summary judgment. The district court found that Valspar lacked evidence of an actual agreement among defendant suppliers to fix prices. at *1.
The Third Circuit agreed with the district court and found that Valspar’s argument failed on two grounds. First, the court explained that Valspar neglected to consider conscious parallelism when it claimed that it was “inconceivable” that defendants executed identical price increases on 31 occasions without a conspiracy. at *5. Price movement in an oligopoly is expected to be interdependent, as rational decision makers anticipate the movements of other firms. Second, Valspar was required to show that defendants’ parallel pricing “went beyond mere interdependence and was so unusual that in the absence of advance agreement, no reasonable firm would have engaged in it.” Id. at *6 (quoting In re Baby Food Antitrust Litig., 166 F.3d 112, 135 (3d Cir. 1999)).

WHAT THIS MEANS:

The Valspar case is interesting in that it is an opt-out case from the In re Titanium Dioxide class action litigation, in which the United States District Court for the District of Maryland denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on the same evidence that here allowed the District of Delaware, as affirmed by the Third Circuit, to grant it. The Third Circuit attributed the different outcomes in the class and opt-out cases to the fact that the District of Maryland—which sits in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit—is not bound by Third Circuit precedent while the District of Delaware is so bound. at *11 (“This resulted in the Maryland court applying a standard quite different from the one we have developed and that the [Delaware court] applied.”).
The opinion clarifies the evidence required under Third Circuit precedent to prove a conspiracy in an oligopolistic industry. The court explained that in oligopoly cases, evidence that price increases are not correlated to supply or demand is “largely irrelevant.” at *7. Awareness among defendants of the conscious parallelism is similarly not enough. Id. at *4 n.3. Plaintiffs must show proof of an explicit, manifest agreement. Id. A plaintiff alleging a conspiracy among defendants may not rely on “ambiguous evidence alone” to survive summary judgment. Id. at *5 [...]

Continue Reading

Fourth Circuit Holds Per-Se Rule Does Not Apply in Bid-Rigging Case

Third Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment for Defendant in Titanium Dioxide Price-Fixing Case

BLOG EDITORS

STAY CONNECTED

TOPICS

ARCHIVES

RECENT POSTS