The Recent Wave, or Ripple, of Antitrust Class Certification Denials

December, 2006
The Antitrust Practitioner
Jack E. Pace III, Victoria Lindsey Oswald

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For a long time, antitrust lawsuits and class certification (that is, grants of motions for class certification) went together like a Hollywood couple early in marriage, seemingly inseparable no matter how much you rooted against them. Indeed, in certain types of cases, such as those involving alleged horizontal price-fixing, some interested parties even perceived a "presumption" in the case law that class certification was appropriate. In the last few years, however, courts increasingly have been denying motions by plaintiffs to certify antitrust lawsuits as class actions. Plaintiffs in such cases thus have been required to proceed on behalf of only the named class representatives or not at all. In other words, the famous couple may be on the rocks.