Telescope Maker And Executives Must Face Price-Fixing And Monopolization Claims

On April 27, 2026, Judge Edward J. Davila of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted in part and denied in part defendants’ summary judgment motions in In re Telescopes Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:20-cv-03642-EJD.  Finding genuine disputes of material fact on most claims, the Court allowed most direct purchaser class claims to proceed to trial against Celestron, including various related entities (“company defendants”), and a current and former CEO (“employee defendants”). 

Direct purchaser plaintiffs (“DPPs”) claim that Celestron, an allegedly dominant consumer telescope manufacturer and distributor owned by various related individuals and entities (some of which are also defendants), engaged in a horizontal price-fixing and market allocation conspiracy in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.  Specifically, DPPs allege that the company defendants and another competitor conspired to fix prices and divide the market, for each of the manufacturing (for import into the United States) and distribution (U.S. consumer distribution) markets.  Pointing to an alleged 65% share of U.S. consumer telescope sales that exceeded 80% during the class period, DPPs further claim that company defendants leveraged their manufacturing monopoly into distribution by colluding and blocking competition. 

Defendants raised several arguments in support of summary judgment on the Section 1 claims, including: that DPPs failed to prove independent conspiratorial conduct by each of the related entities; that there was no evidence of per se illegal horizontal conduct; and that the individual employee defendants never knowingly joined the alleged conspiracy.  The Court found genuine disputes of material fact sufficient to deny defendants’ summary judgment on most of these arguments.  The Court did not, however, accept DPPs’ evidence and allegations uncritically.  In several instances, the Court observed that the DPPs had overread the record, including the evidence used to support DPPs’ allegations against the former CEO whose summary judgment was granted. 

Regarding the argument that DPPs failed to prove independent conduct by company defendants, the Court found sufficient evidence to create a dispute of fact that the related entities operated as a single enterprise and that each actively participated in the alleged conspiracy rather than existing merely as “passive holding companies.”  For example, the Court identified evidence proffered by the DPPs claiming that the board articulated a goal for the entities to be one “organization” that would “lead and shape the overall competitive landscape” and DPP proffered evidence of company defendants brokering sales, facilitating money transfers, setting prices, and paying fees. 

Company defendants also argued that there was no evidence of per se illegal horizontal conduct against them because the manufacturing market is distinct from the distribution market where only one company defendant operates.  The Court denied summary judgment on this ground, finding “substantial” evidence to create a dispute of fact for a reasonable jury to consider whether the conspiracy was integrated across both the manufacturing and distribution market.  The Court credited emails and internal documents in rejecting defendants’ position.  Similarly, as for the market allocation allegations, the Court, in denying summary judgment, credited internal communications proffered by the DPPs claiming that the directing manufacturing company defendants allegedly discussed ways to “avoid conflict” and “divide the products and sell them into different markets to reduce conflicts.” 

Finally, the Court denied summary judgment as to current CEO and a former CEO of the distributor company defendant.  The Court identified evidence from which a jury may find that the current CEO spent years actively obtaining competitor pricing information from the manufacturing company defendants, and asked company defendants to raise prices on other distributor competitors.  The former CEO, whose tenure lasted twenty-six years, authored internal documents calling the related entities “sister companies” and recommended strategies to “take sales from suppliers that compete” with other company defendants and their alleged co-conspirators.  By contrast, the Court granted summary judgment in favor of another former CEO, finding that the DPPs overread the record, and the only remaining evidence against him, such as being copied on emails, forwarding one email, and attending a single “courtesy visit,” was too ambiguous to support the required inference of knowing participation in a conspiracy. 

In their attempt to defeat DPPs’ monopolization, attempted monopolization, and conspiracy to monopolize Section 2 claims relating to the above-described conduct, company defendants sought summary judgment against DPPs’ proposed market definition and attacked DPPs’ monopoly power evidence and expert testimony.  The Court denied defendants’ summary judgment on these claims, stating that DPPs’ proposed market definition for a distribution market of U.S. consumer-grade telescopes was supported with sufficient and consistent evidence to support a trial.  The court also acknowledged that leveraging supply market position into the distribution market blurs the line between the two markets, making consideration of the markets together more relevant for a jury to consider, rather than the Court.  The Court similarly also denied defendants’ summary judgment against DPPs’ monopoly power allegations, finding the expert testimony on market share estimates consistent and sufficient to be tested at trial.  According to the Court, DPPs’ expert adequately accounted for party shares, explained reliability of using shipping container gross weight as a data point, and appropriately excluded parties without sufficient data.  Relatedly, the Court also acknowledged how a jury could imply monopoly power by DPPs’ expert opinion of significant entry barriers for distributors not affiliated with company defendants (e.g., intellectual property protections, institutional knowledge, and scale economies). 

The decision is a reminder that antitrust laws can expose not only companies, but also individual executives and employees, to liability in certain factual scenarios.  With the Court finding genuine disputes of material facts on most claims, the parties will prepare for trial, where the strength of the evidence on both sides will be tested. 

The Court has set a Trial Setting Conference for June 25, 2026.