Goldman Sachs and Barclays prevailed before the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit in antitrust litigation over U.S. Treasury auctions. On February 1, the court affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action alleging that Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other primary dealers in the U.S. Treasury market violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants conspired to rig Treasury auctions by sharing sensitive, proprietary information and placing collusive bids, and that a subgroup of defendants conspired to boycott the emergence of “all-to-all” trading in the secondary market for Treasuries.
Addressing the auctions-related claims, the court concluded that plaintiffs’ allegations involving chatroom communications and statements attributed to a former executive of a non-defendant amounted to little more than “inconsequential market chatter.” It also held that the plaintiffs’ statistical analyses were not specific to the defendants and relied on meaningless averages.
As to the boycott claims, the court concluded that the defendants’ actions were just as likely the result of individual, legitimate business interests.
The ruling should prove useful in defending future antitrust cases, particularly cases that purport to combine evidence of chatroom communications and statistics.
The S&C team representing Goldman Sachs included Rick Pepperman (who argued the auctions portions of the appeal), Jonathan Carter and Alexandra Bodo.
The S&C team representing Barclays included Matthew Schwartz, Kathleen McArthur and Frank Orlich.