Class Certification Denied in Direct Purchaser Action in Florida Cement and Concrete Antitrust Litigation

On January 3, 2012, the United States District Court (Southern District of Florida) denied class certification in the direct purchaser action in favor of our clients, several producers of ready-mix concrete in Florida. The Court relied heavily on the opinions of Compass Lexecon expert, Professor Janusz Ordover, in its ruling. In particular, “The Court finds persuasive Dr. Ordover’s opinion that when coupled with the substantial variation in the size and presence of Defendants and non-Defendants by geographic area, the fact that competition for Concrete is localized necessitates a localized analysis of potential impact to class members.” The Court also found that correlations using highly aggregated price series are not dispositive, again citing the customer-level analysis of Professor Ordover. Mary Coleman, David Weiskopf, and Nauman Ilias, working with a team of research analysts, supported Professor Ordover on this matter. We worked with several legal teams including Bruce Hoffman, Ryan Shores, Melissa Levitt, and Leslie Kostyshak at Hunton & Williams LLP; Shepard Goldfein, Paul Eckles, Matthew Martino, Marissa Troiano, and Nick Danella at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; Richard Brosnick and Benjamin Steffans at Butzel Long, and James Cooper and Ryan Watts at Arnold & Porter LLP.