Richmond, VA, November 6, 2023 — The Fourth Circuit granted Plaintiff Mr. Dee’s Rule 23(f) petition for permission to appeal the denial of certification of a manufacturer class in an antitrust price-fixing case against Defendants CCC, Inmar, Inc., Carolina Manufacturer’s Services, Inc., and Carolina Services (collectively “Inmar”) related to a conspiracy with International Outsourcing Services (“IOS”) to allocate markets and customers for coupon processing.
Plaintiffs offered several alternative proposed class definitions for the manufacturer class, including a class composed of a fixed list of manufacturers for which a regression analysis showed observable overcharges. The court rejected the proposed fixed-list class as “fail-safe” on the grounds that “Plaintiffs generated the list[] of manufacturers … from [their expert’s] regressions which sought to determine which manufacturers [suffered harm].” The district court granted certification of a class of retailer purchasers.
Mr. Dee’s is appealing, inter alia, on the grounds that the proposed manufacturer class does not fit the definition of a fail-safe class because it is not dependent on a final merits determination by the fact-finder.
The case is Mr. Dee’s Inc. v. Inmar, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-141-WO-LPA (M.D.N.C.), No. 23-2165 (4th Cir.).