On March 8, 2023, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a motion to dismiss a proposed antitrust class action lawsuit alleging that social networking company (the “Company”) has a monopoly in the professional social networking market, which it protects through a barrier to entry comprising the Company’s “data centralization and aggregation, its machine learning and AI infrastructure, and the inferred data it produce[s].” Crowder et al. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 22-cv-00237-HSG (N.D. Cal., Mar. 8, 2023). Plaintiffs alleged the Company violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by engaging in a “monopoly broth” of anticompetitive conduct, ranging from exclusive data sharing agreements to an alleged agreement with Facebook to divide markets. Granting the motion to dismiss, the Court ruled that none of the alleged activities amounted to anticompetitive conduct, either individually or on aggregate.

On September 29, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s order certifying a nationwide class of up to 250 million people.  The Ninth Circuit concluded that a common issue of law does not predominate because the laws of other several states apply, not just California’s Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law.  In re Qualcomm Antitrust Litig., No. 19-15159, 2021 WL 4448713 (9th Cir. Sept. 29, 2021).  The indirect purchaser plaintiffs are consumers who allege that Qualcomm Incorporated (“Qualcomm”) violated federal antitrust laws and California’s Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law by engaging in certain corporate policies regarding their licensing of standard essential patents (“SEPs”) and related sales of modem chips.  The Ninth Circuit held that California’s choice of law rules precluded class certification because states without an Illinois Brick repealer statute, which often authorize indirect purchasers to bring antitrust damages suits, “have a clear interest in applying their laws to class members” and to apply only California law would “allow[] California to set antitrust enforcement policy for the entire country.”

On July 23, 2021, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois denied a named plaintiff’s motion for class certification against Defendants Jimmy John’s Franchise, LLC and Jimmy John’s Enterprises, LLC on the basis that he did not meet the factors required to certify a class—among which included his failure to show that his claims where typical of the claims of the potential class members he purported to represent.  Conrad v. Jimmy John’s Franchise, LLC, No. 18-CV-00133-NJR (S.D. Ill. July 23, 2021).

On March 17, 2021, the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s dismissal of a putative class antitrust action, holding that the pre-lawsuit dissolution of the named plaintiffs does not render the action a legal nullity and deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction, provided the assignee of their claims had standing to prosecute the claims as the real party in interest when the suit was filed and joins or substitutes into the action within a reasonable time.  Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC v. Bank of Am. Corp., 2021 WL 1010596 (2d Cir. Mar. 17, 2021).
 

On November 25, 2019, Judge Anita Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an order granting in part, and denying in part, defendants’ motion to dismiss claims alleging Jiffy Lube’s (the “Company’s”) franchise agreements included no-poach provisions that violate Section One of the Sherman Act.  Fuentes v. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, et al., 18-cv-05174 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 25, 2019).  Plaintiffs alleged that requests to be transferred between the Company franchisees in Florida and Pennsylvania were denied because of no-poach clauses that prevented franchisees from hiring other franchisees’ employees while they were working at the Company and for six months following the end of their employment.  According to plaintiffs, the no-poach provision in the Company’s franchising agreements suppressed wages, inhibited employment mobility and lessened professional work opportunities.