SUCCESSFUL SETTLEMENT OF STANDARD-SETTING DISPUTE

Antitrust Dispute and Confidential Settlement: Resolution of Standards-Setting Matter

On behalf of our client, a major manufacturer, we collaborated with a national trade association to persuade a prominent standard-setting agency, the American Society for Testing and Materials, to revise two of its private standards for certain kinds of construction materials: the revised standards allow the inclusion of an entire category of products made by our client.

This matter was privately resolved by the parties before any litigation was initiated. 

We alleged that certain “interested” members of the standard-setting agency had abused its procedures to prevail on it to adopt industry-wide standards that excluded an entire category of products made by our client and others.

According to our challenge, the colluding members of the standard-setting agency sought to undermine competition and restraint trade by excluding an entire category of infrastructure products (concrete culverts) from use in underground infrastructure projects. 

Our antitrust challenge was that the colluding members and the standard-setting agency had restrained trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, and that the standards-setting agency itself bore responsibility itself because it had failed to enforce its own procedures properly.

In this matter, we interacted with a national trade association that supported our client’s position after we took the lead to assert it. The result constituted an unqualified success for our client and all other similarly situated manufacturers.