
Plus Factors in Price-Fixing Litigation
Antitrust plaintiffs typically rely on circumstantial evidence when pursuing price-fixing claims, because price-fixing conspirators usually conceal their collusion through code names, secret meetings, cover stories, and falsified documents. Antitrust law uses a two-step process for proving price-fixing agreements through circumstantial evidence. First, the plaintiff shows that the defendants engaged in similar conduct, referred to as “conscious parallelism.” Second, the plaintiff presents plus factors, which are evidence that suggests the defendants’ parallel conduct is the product of collusion, not independent decisions by the defendant firms. Following the Supreme Court’s mandate in Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. that … Read more