Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—E.D. Pa.: $50M Comcast settlement preliminarily approved, (Dec 15, 2014)

By Greg Hammond, J.D.

Comcast Corp. has obtained preliminary approval of a $50 million settlement over allegations the company unlawfully allocated cable TV markets, causing consumers to pay supracompetitive prices. The federal district court in Philadelphia determined that the proposed settlement class satisfied all the requirements for certification, and the proposed settlement was fair, reasonable, and adequate (Glaberson v. Comcast Corp., December 12, 2014, Padova, J.).

Background. Consumers filed a class action against Comcast, alleging that the company unlawfully divided and allocated markets and engaged in additional anticompetitive conduct in the Philadelphia area. The conduct allegedly reduced and deterred overbuilder competition, causing consumers to pay supracompetitive prices. In October 2014, the parties reached a tentative settlement, which would provide consumers with $50 million in cash and services. The parties moved for settlement class certification and preliminary approval of the settlement.

Certification. The court first determined that the consumers satisfied all of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) requirements for certification of a Philadelphia settlement class. Specifically, it found: (1) the current number of Comcast subscribers is at least 800,000, which satisfies the numerosity requirement; (2) allegations that Comcast entered into a number of market allocating swap and acquisition agreements with other cable companies, causing all class members to be harmed by paying supracompetitive prices, satisfied the commonality requirement; (3) allegations that all class members were injured in the same manner met the typicality requirement; and (4) both the named plaintiffs and class counsel met the adequacy of representation requirement.

In addition, the court determined that the class satisfied the predominance and superiority requirements of Rule 23(b)(3), because expert reports provided common proof of antitrust injury, and the proposed settlement will achieve economies of time, effort, and expense for the court and parties, and the settlement will promote uniformity of decisions as to persons similarly situated.

Preliminary approval. In granting preliminary approval of the proposed class settlement, the court determined that the parties engaged in a strongly contested, arm’s-length negotiation for several years; the settlement was reached after extensive litigation involving 47 depositions, millions of pages of documents, and 37 expert reports; and the plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel believes the settlement to provide significant benefits to the settlement class, avoids the risk and delays of continued litigation, and is in the settlement class’ best interests. The court also found the settlement to be within the range of settlements worthy of final approval as fair, reasonable, and adequate.

The case number is 03-6604.

Attorneys: Ann D. White (AARP Foundation Litigation), Anthony J. Bolognese (Bolognese & Associates, LLC), and Barry C. Barnett (Susman Godfrey LLP) for Stanford Glaberson. Alycia Regan Benenati (Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP) and Christopher B. Hockett (Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP) for Comcast Corp.

Companies: Comcast Corp.

Cases: Antitrust PennsylvaniaNews