Lex Machina Releases 2024 Antitrust Litigation Report

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Apr 04, 2024, 11:00 ET

In the last three years, various subsets of antitrust litigation have exhibited a similar case filing pattern consisting of a drop in 2022 followed by a rebound in 2023

MENLO PARK, Calif., April 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company, today releases its annual Antitrust Litigation Report. The report examines antitrust litigation trends in federal district and appellate courts. Focusing on the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, it surveys emerging trends in case filings, venues, judges, law firms, parties, timing metrics, case resolutions, findings, and damages. The report often focuses on different sets of data, e.g., filtering cases in order to provide analytics on general antitrust cases, DOJ/FTC enforcement contested cases, MDL Master cases, antitrust class action cases, and federal appellate cases.

Lex Machina's 2024 Antitrust Litigation Report Highlights

"Antitrust is a complex area of litigation that includes different subsets of cases as well as significant numbers of MDL cases," said Ron Porter, Lex Machina's antitrust legal data expert and editor of the report. "Lex Machina's data and analytics allow us to organize, refine, and understand the different facets of this complicated practice area. By doing so, we unearthed several interesting trends, such as the recent uptick in several subsets of antitrust cases in 2023. Our outcome analytics on case resolutions and findings also confirms the courts' continued tendency to uphold a high standard at the pleadings stage in antitrust litigation."

Findings from the report include:

In 2023, 534 antitrust cases were filed in federal district courts.
In the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, the highest number of antitrust cases was filed in the Northern District of California, while Judge Tunheim from the District of Minnesota was the most active judge for antitrust cases.
A large bulk of the most active plaintiffs were state entities and purveyors of food and pharmaceuticals, while agriculture and agrichem companies dominated the most active defendants.
In the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, when MDL Associated Cases were excluded, the California Department of Justice was the most active legal department representing plaintiffs in antitrust cases, while Latham & Watkins represented defendants in the highest number of antitrust cases.
For antitrust cases that were appealed to a federal appellate court and terminated from 2021 to 2023 with a decision on the merits of the appeal, 30% were ultimately reversed.
$3.2 billion in total damages were awarded as Approved Class Action Settlements from 2021 to 2023.

Lex Machina's reports and software enable practitioners to devise data-driven litigation strategies. The metrics in this report can help readers decide who to pursue as clients, whether to file a particular motion, or when to settle (and for how much). This research supplements traditional legal research and anecdotal data for a competitive edge in court.

Antitrust Litigation Report Webcast
Lex Machina is hosting a webcast to discuss the report on April 4, 2024 at noon ET/9am PT with Anna Rathbun (Partner at Latham & Watkins), Ron Porter (Lex Machina's Legal Data Expert in Antitrust Litigation), and Aria Nejad (Lex Machina's in-house counsel). Register for the event or view a recording: https://pages.lexmachina.com/2024-Antitrust-Report-Webcast_LP.html

About LexisNexis Legal & Professional
LexisNexis Legal & Professional® provides legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics that help customers increase their productivity, improve decision-making, achieve better outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 150 countries with 11,800 employees worldwide, is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

About Lex Machina
Lex Machina fundamentally changes how companies and law firms compete in the business and practice of law. The company provides strategic insights on judges, lawyers, law firms, parties, and other critical information across 22 federal practice areas and a rapidly growing number of state courts. Lex Machina allows law firms and companies to anticipate the behaviors and outcomes that different legal strategies will produce, enabling them to win cases and close business.

Lex Machina was named Winner of the "Media Excellence Award" for Analytics/Big Data 2024, "Great Places to Work 2023-2024", one of "Legal Tech's Most Promising Solution Providers" (CIO Review Awards 2022), "Greater Bay Area Top Workplaces 2022" (The San Francisco Chronicle Top Workplaces in the Bay Area 2022), "Legal Tech Company of the Year 2021" (CIO Review, 2021), "2021 Legal Technology Trailblazer" (National Law Journal Trailblazer Awards, 2021), and Winner of the "Media Excellence" Award for Analytics/Big Data (13th Annual Media Excellence Award, 2021). Based in Silicon Valley, Lex Machina is part of LexisNexis, a leading global provider of legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics. For more information, please visit www.lexmachina.com.

SOURCE LEX MACHINA