The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of derivatives traders’ antitrust and Commodity Exchange Act claims against BP over alleged manipulation of North Sea Brent crude oil in Europe that plaintiffs claimed affected domestic derivatives prices. In its August 29 ruling in Prime International Trading Ltd. v. BP, et al., a unanimous panel held that the CEA claims were impermissibly extraterritorial, even though some of the plaintiffs’ derivatives trades allegedly occurred in the United States, because the alleged misconduct by defendants was exclusively foreign. The Court also concluded that plaintiffs failed to show antitrust injury because they did not participate in either of the allegedly restrained markets.
The team was led by S&C litigation partners Rick Pepperman and Amanda Davidoff as well as associate Austin Raynor.