On January 13, 2025, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim that it monopolized the market for “Canadian crude oil transportation services in the Chicago area” in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act and similar Illinois statutes, which require harmonization with federal laws.

On December 13, 2024, Judge Margaret M. Garnett of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied defendants’ motions to dismiss a sports streaming company’s antitrust suit challenging their programming distribution methods as well as their proposed joint sports streaming service. FuboTV Inc. v. Walt Disney Co., No. 1:24-cv-01363 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 16, 2024). 

On June 21, 2021, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in a long running and closely watched dispute between the National Collegiate Athletic Association, along with 11 Division I conferences, (together, the “NCAA” or “Defendants”) and a class of current and former Division I football and basketball players claiming that NCAA restrictions on their compensation violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act (together, the “student athletes” or “Plaintiffs”).  NCAA v. Alston, et al., No. 20–512, 594 U.S. ___ (2021).  The Court’s unanimous decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, upheld a district court order enjoining NCAA limits placed on education-related benefits provided by member schools to student athletes and permitting limits on compensation and benefits related to athletic performance.

On March 31, 2021, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in the consolidated cases National Collegiate Athletic Associate v. Alston (No. 20-520) and American Athletic Conference v. Alston (No. 20-512).  These cases were previously covered as part of our preview of the current Supreme Court term.  Plaintiffs below – NCAA student-athletes – challenged the NCAA’s limits on education-related benefits to student athletes as unreasonable restraints on competition for the student-athletes’ services that violated Section One of the Sherman Act.  After a lengthy trial, the district court agreed and entered an injunction in favor of plaintiffs.  The Ninth Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court had properly applied the rule of reason to the challenged rules, that the rules had significant anticompetitive effects, and that plaintiffs had established that less restrictive alternatives to the existing rules were viable in that they were “virtually as effective” in achieving the procompetitive purposes of the joint venture.  The case-specific issue presented to the Supreme Court is whether the Ninth Circuit erred in affirming the district court’s judgment that the NCAA eligibility rules regarding compensation of student-athletes violated the Sherman Act.  But the case may have broader implications in how courts analyze a joint venture’s restraints on competition under the rule of reason, including how courts should evaluate claims that a defendant joint venture could have or should have used less restrictive means to accomplish its procompetitive goal.
 

On December 5, 2019, the Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas held that a movie theater chain presented sufficient evidence suggesting two national competitors conspired to prevent the chain’s entry to withstand summary judgment.  This ruling reversed the trial court’s decision, which granted summary judgment to the remaining defendant and dismissed antitrust restraint-of-trade claims.  iPic-Gold Class Entm’t LLC, et al. v. AMC Entm’t Holdings Inc., et al., No. 01-17-00805-CV (Tex. App. Dec. 5, 2019).  Justice Peter Kelly, writing for a unanimous panel, ruled that evidence of parallel actions by the two competitors and communication lines between them raised genuine issues of material fact as to the existence of a conspiracy in violation of The Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act (“TFEAA”). 

On November 28, 2018, Judge Marco A. Hernández of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, on remand from the Ninth Circuit, reversed its prior grant of a motion to dismiss and held that plaintiff — which brought antitrust conspiracy claims against a non-profit corporation made up of 549 member colleges — sufficiently demonstrated antitrust injury by alleging harm to the member colleges.  CollegeNET, Inc. v. The Common Application, Inc., No. 3:14-CV-00771-HZ (D. Or. Nov. 28, 2018).

On April 19, 2018, Judge Beth L. Freeman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied defendants’ motion to dismiss antitrust claims under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, rejecting defense arguments that the complaint alleged no more than permissible unilateral conduct by a legitimate joint venture. 

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