Last Week in Antitrust Litigation (#040)

Week of December 15, 2025

Top Takeaways

1. Tech and Platform Conduct Remains Frontline Risk: New suits against YouTube, PepsiCo, and Google highlight expanding theories of dominance and coordination—spanning video monetization, vertical pricing, and digital advertising.

2. Regulators Sustain Merger Momentum: The FTC’s action to block Henkel’s Liquid Nails acquisition underscores continued enforcement against brand consolidation in consumer goods, reaffirming market-share thresholds as key indicators of harm.

3. Courts Sharpen Class and Standing Standards: Recent rulings—from the MiCamp dismissal for lack of antitrust standing to Crowder v. LinkedIn’s rejection of a weak settlement—show courts demanding clear market injury, credible evidence, and fair, proportionate relief.

New Cases Filed

Socialryse LLC v. YouTube LLC (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 14, 2025): SocialRyse , a New York independent music label, filed suit against YouTube and Google alleging they abused monopoly power and engaged in anticompetitive conduct in the market for automated online video monetization to eliminate SocialRyse from YouTube’s Content ID monetization system in violation of, among other things, the Sherman Act. The complaint asserts that after YouTube’s own system confirmed over $600,000 in royalties from SocialRyse’s catalog, YouTube secretly pressured distributors such as Create Music Group to terminate the label’s monetization under a fabricated “Circumventing Content ID” rationale. SocialRyse claims YouTube concealed its role, issued deceptive explanations, and continues to blacklist its catalog through undisclosed “invalid reference” flags, effectively barring reentry into the platform.

Gelbspan v. Pepsico Inc. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2025): Consumers filed a class action against PepsiCo and Walmart alleging a vertical price-fixing conspiracy that artificially inflated retail prices of Pepsi products nationwide in violation of, among others, the Sherman Act and state antitrust laws. The complaint asserts that Pepsi sold its beverages to Walmart at lower wholesale prices while charging rival retailers inflated prices, maintaining a “price gap” that ensured Walmart’s dominance and suppressed price competition. Pepsi allegedly monitored competitor pricing, punished “offender” retailers that undercut Walmart, and provided Walmart with confidential pricing data and promotional allowances unavailable to others. Plaintiffs claim this arrangement raised prices for consumers buying Pepsi products anywhere other than Walmart, reduced competition and innovation in the soft drink market, and enriched both companies through supracompetitive profits.

FTC v. Henkel AG & Co. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2025): The FTC sued to block Henkel’s proposed acquisition of A-Paint Topco, owner of Liquid Nails, alleging it would unlawfully reduce competition in violation of the Clayton and FTC Acts. The complaint contends the merger would combine Loctite and Liquid Nails—the two dominant U.S. construction adhesive brands sold at major retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe’s—creating a presumptively illegal concentration. The FTC asserts the deal would eliminate direct head-to-head rivalry that has driven lower prices, innovation, and better product quality, giving Henkel power to raise prices and limit consumer choice. Entry by new firms is deemed unlikely due to the brands’ long-entrenched shelf dominance and high barriers to brand recognition and distribution. The agency seeks a permanent injunction preventing the transaction to preserve competition in the U.S. retail construction-adhesives market.

Conveyor Tech. & Components, LLC v. Van der Graaf, Corp. (E.D. Ark. Dec. 17, 2025): Conveyor Technology & Components (“CTC”) sued Van der Graaf Corp., Van der Graaf Inc., and their owner Alexander Kanaris, alleging violations of the Sherman Act in the aftermarket for drum motors. The complaint claims Van der Graaf, the leading drum motor manufacturer, abruptly terminated CTC’s distributorship after CTC declined an acquisition offer and began competing in installation and servicing. Plaintiff alleges that Van der Graaf pressured third-party distributors to stop selling to CTC, threatened them with product cutoffs, and barred CTC from repairing its motors, effectively foreclosing CTC from the aftermarket for drum motors. CTC asserts this conduct constituted, among other things, an unlawful refusal to deal and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

Patient to Person, LLC v. Careismatic Brands, LLC (D. Mass. Dec. 18, 2025): Patient to Person (“PTP”) filed suit alleging that Careismatic Brands and its affiliates Silverts Adaptive and Silverts Universal alleging defendants unlawfully misappropriated certain IP and confidential information to monopolize the market for post-surgical treatment and recovery wear in violation of, among others, the Sherman Act. PTP claims it licensed patents and trademarks for its patented “Jacki” post-surgical recovery wear to Careismatic, which then breached the agreement by sharing PTP’s confidential designs with its subsidiary Silverts Adaptive to create a competing “recovery wear” line. After Careismatic’s 2024 bankruptcy, Silverts’ employees formed Silverts Universal through an employee buyout that included a broad non-compete clause barring Careismatic from selling adaptive or recovery clothing—effectively excluding PTP’s products from the market. PTP alleges this non-compete constituted an unlawful restraint of trade and enabled Silverts to monopolize the U.S. market for post-surgical and cancer recovery garments, while Careismatic ceased promoting PTP’s line.

The follow-on cases that were filed are:

• Taurus Acquisition Grp. v. Actavis Holdco US, Inc. (E.D. Pa. Dec. 12, 2025) (alleging conspiracy to fix and maintain prices of generic drugs like in In re Generic Pharms. Pricing Antitrust Litig. (E.D. Pa.))

• Ortega v. NCAA (S.D. Iowa Dec. 15, 2025) (alleging NCAA’s eligibility rules are anticompetitive like in Elad v. NCAA (D.N.J. Mar. 20, 2025))

• City of Ann Arbor v. Oshkosh Corp. (E.D. Wis. Dec. 16, 2025) (alleging defendants conspired to inflate the price of fire trucks like in City of La Crosse v. Oshkosh Corp. (E.D. Wis. Aug. 20, 2025))

• Taylor Egg Prods., Inc. v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (S.D. Ind. Dec. 17, 2025) (alleging conspiracy to fix prices of conventional fresh shell eggs like in King Kullen Grocery Co. v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (S.D. Ind. Nov. 6, 2025))

• Index Exch. Inc. v. Google LLC (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 17, 2025) (alleging Google monopolized the ad server and ad exchange markets like in United States v. Google LLC (E.D. Va. Jan. 24, 2023))

Dispositive Orders and Verdicts

MiCamp Solutions, LLC v. Visa Inc. (N.D. Cal. Dec. 11, 2025): In this case alleging that Visa monopolized the card payment processing services market through rules restricting surcharging, cash discounts, and steering customers toward cheaper payment methods in violation of, among others, the Sherman Act and the Cartwright Act, the court dismissed MiCamp Solutions’ antitrust claims with prejudice. The court held that MiCamp’s claims were not barred by the Illinois Brick doctrine, but that the complaint lacked allegations sufficient to establish antitrust standing. MiCamp’s alleged harms—including non-compliance penalties, reduced business goodwill, and fewer payment options—were not tied to any anticompetitive effect in the defined market.

Carefirst of Md. v. Johnson & Johnson (E.D. Va. Dec. 15, 2025): In this case alleging Johnson & Johnson unlawfully delayed biosimilar competition for Stelara, the court denied CareFirst’s motion for summary judgment and granted in part J&J’s. The court held that genuine disputes of fact precluded summary judgment on whether J&J committed Walker Process fraud by misrepresenting or omitting prior studies on ulcerative colitis from its ʼ307 patent application, and on whether J&J’s 2020 acquisition of Momenta’s manufacturing patents constituted willful monopolization by delaying biosimilar entry. However, it rejected most fraud theories, finding that many alleged omissions were immaterial. The court also denied exclusion motions for both parties’ experts, ruling that each offered admissible analyses on monopoly power. Because factual disputes remained on market definition, J&J’s intent, and causation of antitrust injury, both sides’ core summary judgment motions were denied, allowing CareFirst’s monopolization and Walker Process claims to proceed to trial.

Zelikovsky v. Int’l Ass’n of Eating Disorder Pros.’ Found. (C.D. Ill. Dec. 15, 2025): In this class action alleging, among others, antitrust violations by the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (“iaedp”) and its longtime director, the court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss. The court held that plaintiffs’ Sherman Act tying claim failed for not plausibly alleging that iaedp possessed market power in the eating disorder certification market.

Jenkins v. NCAA (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2025): In this case alleging that NCAA rules unlawfully restrained college athletes’ compensation for their name, image, likeness, and athletic services in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit brought by former Villanova player Kris Jenkins. The court held that Jenkins’s claims were barred by the 2017 Alston class action settlement, which released all monetary claims arising from NCAA compensation restrictions for athletes from 2014–2017, and that his participation in that class precluded relitigation under res judicata. The court also ruled the claims untimely under the four-year statute of limitations, finding that Jenkins’s antitrust injury accrued no later than 2013 when he first played under the NCAA’s rules, and that renewing his scholarship did not restart the limitations period. Accordingly, all claims were dismissed in full.

Class Actions Certifications and Settlements

In re Google Digit. Advert. Antitrust Litig. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 12, 2025): In this MDL over Google’s conduct in connection with its AdX ad exchange and AdSense platform, the court granted in part plaintiffs’ motions for class certification. The court certified a class of publishers who sold ad inventory through Google’s AdX exchange from 2016 to 2024, finding numerosity, commonality, typicality, adequacy, and predominance satisfied based on expert evidence that Google’s tying of its DFP ad server to AdX inflated take rates from 10% to 20%. It upheld Professor Einer Elhauge’s benchmark model comparing open-web transactions to untied mobile-app auctions as reliable under Daubert and limited the class to exclude instream video ads due to lack of common proof of overcharge. The court denied certification of the AdSense subclass, finding the sole proposed class representative did not meet the typicality and adequacy requirements because nearly all its sales used DFP rather than the AdSense server, and denied the advertiser class motion because plaintiff Hanson’s brief 2016 use of Google Ads predated key conduct, lacked common evidence of harm, and implicated widespread arbitration agreements.

In re Turkey Antitrust Litig. (N.D. Ill. Dec. 16, 2025): In this case alleging a conspiracy to fix turkey prices in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the court granted final approval of class settlements, certifying a settlement class of commercial and institutional indirect purchasers in repealer states that bought fresh or frozen turkey products for use in food preparation. Finding the agreements fair, reasonable, and negotiated at arm’s length, the court dismissed all claims against the settling defendants with prejudice, approved the release of all related claims, and held that notice satisfied Rule 23 and due process with no objections filed. The court retained jurisdiction over administration, allocation, and enforcement of the settlements and directed entry of final judgment under Rule 54(b).

In re Pork Antitrust Litig. (D. Minn. Dec. 17, 2025): In this class action alleging price-fixing in the pork industry, the court granted final approval of a $7.75 million class settlement resolving the antitrust claims, certifying injunctive and damages classes of commercial and institutional indirect purchasers of pork products from 2014 to 2018 in repealer jurisdictions. Finding the settlement fair, reasonable, and negotiated in good faith, the court dismissed all claims against Clemens with prejudice, approved the release of related claims, and held that notice fully satisfied Rule 23 and due process with no objections filed. The court retained jurisdiction over administration, allocation, and enforcement of the settlement and directed entry of final judgment under Rule 54(b).

Crowder v. LinkedIn Corp. (N.D. Cal. Dec. 17, 2025): The court denied preliminary approval of a proposed class settlement in an antitrust action alleging LinkedIn unlawfully maintained a monopoly in professional social networking. The agreement provided only three years of injunctive relief preventing enforcement of certain “non-use” API provisions but released all damages claims, while plaintiffs’ counsel sought $4 million in fees under a clear-sailing clause. Finding the relief short-term, of unclear competitive value, and disproportionate to the fees requested, the court held the settlement fell outside the range of possible approval, raised risks of collusion, and contained multiple deficiencies that made it neither fair nor reasonable under Rule 23(e).

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If you have any antirust questions or would like more information about any of these matters, please contact one of the following authors:

Christian Lorenz Zach Martin  christian@kressinpowers.com zach@kressinpowers.com

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