We obtained a highly favorable, confidential settlement for a reseller of medical devices after developing and asserting its antitrust claims against a dominant distributor and two major manufacturers of the same kinds of devices. We litigated our claims in a California Superior Court under California’s Cartwright Act (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16700 et seq.)
In this case, a California Superior Court rejected the defendants’ motions to dismiss (called “demurrers”) and permitted our client to challenge resale price maintenance as a per se violation of the Cartwright Act, doing so well after the federal courts had rejected this theory of liability when invoked under the parallel federal statute (Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1). Agreeing with our antitrust theories, the California court also permitted our client to litigate related antitrust challenges and refused to reject them as a matter of law. The case settled shortly after discovery procedures began. Case Name: SMRT, LLC v. Resmed Corp. et al. (S.D. Cty. 2011, Case No. 37-2011-00087297).
