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ARTICLE · 04 AUGUST 2026

Algorithmic Price Fixing After Cornish-Adebiyi: The Third Circuit Revives Hub-and-Spoke Claims Against Shared Pricing Software

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The Third Circuit's reversal in Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars Entertainment raises critical questions about when algorithmic pricing software crosses the line from legitimate business tool to illegal price-fixing conspiracy. Casino-hotels allegedly fed confidential pricing data into shared software that pooled competitor information to generate coordinated rate recommendations—a practice the court found plausibly constitutes a Sherman Act violation. This decision, contrasted with the Ninth Circuit's Gibs

United StatesAntitrust/Competition Law
Matthew D. Provance
Matthew D. Provance
Daniel T. Fenske
Daniel T. Fenske
Kaitlyn Barry
Kaitlyn Barry
Harsha V. Tolappa
Harsha V. Tolappa
Ora Nwabueze
Ora Nwabueze
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Introduction

On July 29, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its decision in Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars Entertainment, Inc., No. 24-3006, reversing the District of New Jersey’s dismissal of a putative class action alleging that Atlantic City casino-hotels and their algorithmic software provider, Cendyn Group, LLC, conspired to fix hotel room prices in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The plaintiffs allege that the casino-hotel defendants fed non-public, real-time room pricing and occupancy data into Cendyn’s “Rainmaker” dynamic pricing software, which then allegedly pooled that data across competing properties to generate coordinated price recommendations that the hotels followed approximately 90% of the time. The Complaint alleges this arrangement is a hub-and-spoke conspiracy—with Rainmaker as the hub and the casino-hotels as the spokes—resulting in supracompetitive room rates during a period of declining occupancy. The District Court

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