Ninth Circuit Clarifies, Limits Exceptions To "Illinois Brick" For Indirect Purchaser Standing In Antitrust Suit

In a recent opinion, the Ninth Circuit provided important clarifications regarding the scope of two exceptions to the general rule set forth in Illinois Brick¹that only direct purchasers have standing to pursue damages for antitrust violations. The court's decision in In re ATM Fee Antitrust Litigation²narrowly interpreted the exceptions to the Illinois Brick rule, and held that plaintiffs, who did not directly purchase the allegedly price-fixed product from the defendants, lacked standing to pursue the antitrust claims.

Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants – a group of ATM card-issuing banks and an ATM network – violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by conspiring to fix the interchange fee that banks must pay to the ATM network when a cardholder engages in an ATM transaction abroad. As holders of ATM cards, plaintiffs allege they were injured by the purported conspiracy because banks passed on the inflated interchange fees to cardholders by increasing the foreign