Last Week in Antitrust Litigation (#041)
- Kressin Powers
- Dec 28, 2025
- 5 min read
Week of December 22, 2025
Top Takeaways
Antitrust Lawsuits Reach New Frontiers: Developers and cattle breeders face new claims—showing that antitrust challenges now touch real estate, agriculture, and healthcare alike.
Judges Tighten the Rules on Litigation-Based Conduct: A court let “sham litigation” claims proceed against a drug company accused of using patents to block biosimilars, signaling that aggressive IP enforcement can raise antitrust risk.
Courts Demand Better Expert Evidence: A Wisconsin court rejected a healthcare class case after excluding the plaintiffs’ damages expert, a reminder that class certification hinges on credible, data-driven proof of harm.
New Cases Filed
Just Block 112, LLC v. Hector (D.N.J. Dec. 19, 2025): Just Block and Hoboken Western Edge filed suit against Miguel Hector, his family, and affiliated entities alleging an anticompetitive conspiracy to block mixed-use redevelopment projects in Hoboken’s Western Edge Redevelopment Area in violation of, among others, federal and New Jersey antitrust laws. The complaint claims defendants—owners of nearby properties and developers of competing rental housing—formed the “Palisades Cliffs Protection Alliance” as a sham nonprofit to launch repetitive, meritless lawsuits and objections aimed at delaying plaintiffs’ approved projects and discouraging financing. Plaintiffs allege this campaign of “sham litigation” sought to preserve defendants’ market dominance, protect their own views and property values, and suppress hundreds of new rental units amid a regional housing shortage.
P&R Herefords v. Am. Hereford Ass'n (W.D. Ok. Dec. 19, 2025): P&R Herefords and owner Paul Laubach sued the American Hereford Association (“AHA”) and its executive vice president Jack Ward, alleging monopolization, unlawful tying, and exclusive dealing in the market for registered Hereford cattle in violation of the Sherman and Clayton Acts. The complaint claims AHA, as the sole registry for Hereford cattle in the U.S., used its monopoly power to require breeders to buy expensive, unnecessary DNA testing exclusively through its designated laboratory as a condition of registering cattle. Plaintiffs allege AHA inflated testing prices, blocked competing labs, asserted ownership over breeders’ DNA samples and data, and imposed surcharges to retrieve them, all to suppress competition and entrench its dominance in the registered Hereford and genetic-testing markets.
The follow-on cases that were filed are:
Hudson v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (S.D. Ind. Dec. 19, 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))
Donovan v. PepsiCo, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 19, 2025) (alleging conspiracy that artificially inflated prices of Pepsi products like in Gelbspan v. PepsiCo Inc. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2025))
Redner’s Markets, Inc. v. PepsiCo, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2025) (same)
City of Liberty v. Oshkosh Corp. (E.D. Wis. Dec. 19, 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))
Commack Fire Dist. v. Oshkosh Corp. (E.D. Wis. Dec. 22, 2025) (same)
City of Arcadia v. Am. Indus. Partners, LLC (E.D. Wis. Dec. 22, 2025) (same)
Kargo Glob. LLC v. Google LLC (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 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
EmblemHealth, Inc. v. Alexion Pharms., Inc. (D. Mass. Dec. 19, 2025): In this case alleging that Alexion unlawfully maintained its Soliris monopoly by enforcing fraudulently obtained patents to delay biosimilar competition, the court granted in part and denied in part Alexion’s motion to dismiss. The court held that EmblemHealth, a health insurer, plausibly alleged antitrust injury based on the delayed 2024–2025 entry of Amgen and Samsung biosimilars and had Article III and class standing under Asacol. However, the court ruled that indirect purchasers like Emblem lack standing to assert Walker Process fraud claims for patents allegedly procured through deception of the PTO. At the same time, the court found that Emblem sufficiently pleaded a “sham litigation” theory—alleging Alexion knowingly enforced invalid patents against Samsung to delay competition—such that the Noerr-Pennington immunity defense could not be resolved at the pleading stage.
Class Actions Certifications and Settlements
In re Surescripts Antitrust Litig. (N.D. Ill. Dec. 18 ,2025): In this class action alleging that Surescripts and Allscripts (now Veradigm) engaged in anticompetitive conduct in the market for electronic prescription routing, the court granted final approval of a class settlement resolving the antitrust claims, certifying a nationwide settlement class of all U.S. pharmacies that paid for e-prescriptions routed through Surescripts from 2010 to 2025. Finding the agreement fair, reasonable, and adequate under Rule 23(e), the court approved dismissal with prejudice of all claims, incorporated mutual releases, and confirmed that notice satisfied due process and the Class Action Fairness Act. The court retained jurisdiction over implementation and enforcement of the settlement, with attorneys’ fees and service awards to be determined by separate order, and directed immediate entry of final judgment.
Team Schierl Cos. v. Aspirus, Inc. (W.D. Wis. Dec. 19, 2025): The court denied class certification and excluded the plaintiffs’ expert damages model in this case alleging that Aspirus and its network illegally fixed outpatient healthcare prices through joint contracting and exclusivity rules. The court found economist Jeffrey Leitzinger’s yardstick model unreliable under Daubert because it used a comparator market tainted by similar conduct and failed to control for key factors such as provider quality and market share, leaving no admissible method to measure classwide damages. Without a valid common damages model, the plaintiffs could not satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement, so the motion to certify a class of commercial insurers and self-funded health plans was denied, and the case was stayed pending a joint status report.
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