On May 13, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court decision that exposes antitrust defendants to multiple recoveries. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed an amicus brief urging reversal. To prevent the possibility of multiple recoveries arising from a single course of conduct, the Court ruled 40 years ago that standing to assert claims for antitrust damages is limited to the immediate victims of the anticompetitive conduct—the direct purchasers. But the Court’s latest decision adopted a very broad definition of who qualifies as “direct purchasers,” an outcome that complicates antitrust litigation and exposes many companies to duplicative claims. WLF argued that broadly defining “direct” purchasers—and thereby permitting consumers to sue companies that played no role in setting the prices about which the plaintiffs complain—is inconsistent with Court precedent and threatens to chill the very sorts of competition that the antitrust laws are designed to encourage.
