It is not exactly “breaking news” that in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 577 (2007) the Supreme Court held that a complaint may be dismissed if it does not allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” In the aftermath of Twombly it became more difficult for plaintiffs to sustain pleadings that relied on reasonable inferences of collusion from parallel conduct. Lower courts took to heart the policy concern expressed in Twombly that the enormous cost of private antitrust litigation could cause defendants to settle non-meritorious suits simply to avoid the expense of litigation. [Also, the threat of frivolous suits that are simply too costly to defend would put a chill on pro-competitive conduct]. But, Twombly has not been the death knell of private antitrust actions. The Supreme Court has also recognized that Congress drafted the antitrust laws with the express purpose of encouraging private enforcement. See Reiter v. Sonone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 344 (1979). And as the Sixth Circuit has noted, “Rational people, after all, do not conspire in the open, and a plaintiff is very unlikely to have factual information that would exclude the possibility of non-conspiratorial explanation before discovery.” Erie County, Ohio v. Morton Salt, 702 F. 3d 860, 869 (2012) (emphasis in original). These policy interests compete as courts weigh on a case-by-case basis whether plaintiffs have “nudged their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” But, it seems it may be easier to budge the judge on the nudge as time has passed from the Twombly decision. [Read more…]