U.S. States Flex New Power To Steer Antitrust Lawsuits
By Mike Scarcella
A ruling this week in Arkansas showed U.S. states' heightened ability to control the battleground for antitrust lawsuits, invoking a federal law that creates new
headaches for corporate defendants.
U.S. District Judge Brian Miller in Little Rock on Wednesday granted Arkansas' bid to keep a year-old antitrust lawsuit against pesticide makers Syngenta and Corteva in the state, overruling objections from the companies that it should be transferred to a court in North Carolina that is already overseeing similar unfair pricing claims against them.
Miller's ruling and an earlier one last year in a case challenging Google's digital ad practices are among the first to cite a year-old federal law, the State Antitrust Enforcement
Venue Act of 2022.
The law says antitrust actions brought by state attorneys general are exempt from being transferred into coordinated legal proceedings, raising the stakes for corporate defendants that could be forced to fight related lawsuits in multiple courts. The law gives the states more equal footing with the U.S. Justice Department, which already had power to keep its antitrust cases in a preferred venue and out of multidistrict proceedings. States should have the benefit of a home-field advantage, according to the law's bipartisan backers.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin in a statement said he was pleased the state’s case will remain in Arkansas.
Syngenta and Corteva, which both deny violating antitrust law, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The companies had warned Miller that allowing Arkansas to remain detached from parallel proceedings would force them to "unnecessarily expend resources to defend against substantially similar allegations."
They cited a provision of federal law that allows judges to transfer a civil case for reasons including the convenience of the parties and witnesses, and in the interest of justice.
Miller rejected the companies' arguments.
Arkansas argued it was entitled to have a home-state jury decide its claims, and not a "foreign" one in North Carolina, which is home to Syngenta Crop Protection LLC.
The arguments over venue mirrored Google's objection to allowing Texas and a coalition of states to move their case against the company to Texas from a coordinated legal proceeding in Manhattan. An appeals court in October weighed the new law and let Texas restart its case in Plano, where it was first filed in 2020. Under the law, state attorneys general now “can live up to their function as one line of defense against anticompetitive conduct,” said Christine Bartholomew, an antitrust scholar who teaches at the University at Buffalo School of Law. Wisconsin state antitrust prosecutor Gwendolyn Cooley, who leads the multistate antitrust task force at the National Association of Attorneys General, said companies already frequently have to battle related claims in more than one court. “It reflects the reality of doing business in many states, just like those businesses that have international reach are required to litigate in multiple countries,” Cooley said. In another venue dispute that could turn on the 2022 law, major pharmaceutical companies including Teva, Sandoz, Aurobindo are fighting a bid led by Connecticut to return price-fixing litigation to that state.
The drug companies told a court there would be "chaos" if Connecticut is allowed to leave a coordinated legal proceeding that was established in Philadelphia federal court years ago.
The case is State of Arkansas v. Syngenta Crop Protection et al, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, No. 4:22-cv-01287-BSM.
For Arkansas: Amanda Wentz of the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office; Brian Reddick of Reddick Law; Stuart Davidson of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd; and W. Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm
For Syngenta: Paul Mishkin of Davis Polk & Wardwell; Andrew King of Kutak Rock
For Corteva: David Marriott of Cravath, Swaine & Moore; and Steven Quattlebaum of Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)
