Amicus Brief: Atlantic City Hotels Algorithmic Price-Fixing Case
COSAL filed an amicus brief in the Third Circuit in the Atlantic City Hotels algorithmic price-fixing case,
The brief argues that the lower court’s order misapplied the law and threatens to chill private enforcement of the antitrust laws: specifically (1) the district court improperly isolated individual pieces of the complaint to determine whether each, standing alone, was sufficient; (2) the district court misapplied the law by requiring plaintiffs to plead that defendants entered the conspiracy at the same time; (3) the district court similarly misapplied the law by finding that plaintiffs’ per se price-fixing claim hinged on whether the information the Hotel Owners input in the pricing algorithm was publicly-available; (4) the court incorrectly labeled the conduct at issue as vertical or hybrid horizontal-and-vertical, when the conspiracy was solely horizontal and, accordingly, should be evaluated as a per se violation.
COSAL is hopeful that our advocacy in this and the related Gibson Las Vegas case will encourage the positive development of antitrust law, particularly in the area of algorithmic price-fixing, where the law has been sluggish to catch up with economic reality.
The brief was drafted by Hausfeld’s Gary Smith and Joey Bui with support from the COSAL Amicus Committee.
