306 F.3d 469 | 7th Cir. | 2002
Lead Opinion
These cases, which we have consolidated for purposes of this opinion, all arise out of an alleged conspiracy in the 1990s to fix the price of copper futures at artificially high levels on the international exchange markets. This market manipulation necessarily and directly inflated the price of the products purchased by the plaintiffs, buyers of copper cathode, copper rod, and scrap copper, who have sued for violations of the Sherman Act, RICO, and various
I
A. The Parties
The production of copper entails a complicated four-step process. First, copper producers extract ore from a copper mine and crush or mill it into a gravel-like substance known as concentrate. Second, smelters separate out the nonferrous metals in the concentrate, producing one-meter square plates of anode, which are approximately 90% copper. Next, the anode is refined eleetrolytically to create sheets of cathode. Finally, the cathode is fed into a furnace at a mill and melted into rod or wire. In the course of manufacturing cathode and rod, scrap copper is also produced, and it too can be sold into the market.
The plaintiffs in these actions are large companies occupying various positions along the copper production chain. The plaintiffs in No. 01-3485, Viacom, Incorporated (a successor to Westinghouse Electric Corporation) and Emerson Electric Company, turn copper cathode into wire for resale to merchants. Each purchased hundreds of millions of pounds of cathode during the relevant time period from integrated producers, who smelt and refine copper from their own mines into cathode.
Ocean View Capital is the plaintiff in Nos. 01-3229 and 01-3230. Until it went out of business in 1996, it was a large Rhode Island-based manufacturer of copper wire and cable. Unlike Viacom and Emerson, Ocean View normally , did not purchase cathode; instead, it bought copper that had already been transformed into rod. Some of this rod was manufactured by integrated producers. . Ocean View also contracted frequently with semi-fabricators, which own and operate rod mills but do not own .mines, concentrators, smelters, or refineries. Instead, semi-fabricators typically purchase cathode from producers or copper traders and fabricate the cathode into rod. On some occasions, Ocean View varied this process by entering into tolling agreements with its semi-fabricators under which it purchased its own cathode from producers or traders and then paid the semi-fabricator to convert it into usable rod.
The plaintiffs in Loeb Industries v. Sumitomo, Nos. 00-3979 and 01-1148, are three scrap metal dealers (to whom we refer as the “Scrap Dealers”). Each purchases only scrap copper; none buys either cathode or rod. The scrap is purchased from a variety of sources, including integrated producers and wire manufacturers, and then repackaged and resold.
B. The Copper Market
Despite the fact that copper is sold in a variety of physical forms, the summary judgment record (viewed in the light most
While sales between six plaintiffs and numerous other copper industry participants are involved, we will illustrate this linkage by discussing only the relationship between one of the plaintiffs, Viacom, and the largest integrated producer, Asarco. Viacom entered into yearly supply contracts with Asarco, copies of which are included in the record. In these contracts, the price Viacom paid Asarco for cathode was made up of two components. First, the base price was set by “the arithmetic average of the COMEX first position settlements for high-grade copper during the calendar month of scheduled shipment.” From 1990 to 1996, this price fluctuated from about 75d:/lb to over $1.40/lb. Added to the base price was a “cathode premium” that was set on a monthly or quarterly basis. Asarco’s premium fluctuated over the relevant time period from 2.75d:/tb to 3.5<tflb. The record also indicates that when the base price of copper increased, the premium tended to increase as well.
Viacom bought over half a billion pounds of cathode from Asarco. Asarco manufactured most of this cathode, but some had been purchased for resale from other merchants to make up for production shortfalls. Because records of these purchases were not kept, it is impossible to tell whether any particular pound of cathode sold to Viacom was manufactured by Asar-co or merely purchased for resale. The defendants concede, however, that some of the cathode in question was being sold into the market for the first time. While there is some dispute as to the exact numbers, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to Viacom, Asarco sold it 510 million pounds of cathode over the relevant period. During this same time frame, Asarco refined 6.4 billion pounds of cathode and purchased 153 million pounds from third parties. Therefore, even if one assumed that every scrap of Asarco’s previously sold cathode was shipped to Viacom (instead of to one of its many other customers), Viacom still purchased 357 million pounds of never-before-purchased cathode. Viacom seeks damages in this suit only for cathode that was sold to it for the first time by its integrated producers.
Asarco also pm-chased raw materials,’ such as concentrate and anode, to supplement its own production and ' keep its smelters and refineries running at full capacity. At least 27 million pounds of the cathode Asarco shipped to Viacom consisted entirely of Asarco raw materials, but the rest may well contain some percentage of previously purchased materials. While raw materials are often priced in reference to Comex prices, only cathode is actually traded on the exchange. Raw material prices also incorporate significant and
The pricing of rod and scrap are similar except that each contains further premiums and discounts off the cathode futures price to reflect a variety of additional costs. Rod pricing contains an additional rod or shaping premium. Scrap copper prices are affected by not only the price of cathode but also freight costs, sizing, sorting, packaging, and purity requirements.
Some of Viacom’s suppliers and customers engaged in strategic hedging by purchasing “put” options on the futures markets. A put option holder has the right, but not the obligation, to sell a futures contract at an established “strike” price. If the market price is higher than the strike price (because, for example, the price has been artificially raised), the holder’s option will expire and its only cost will be the price of the option. Asar-co purchased put options to hedge its output, but it did not hedge against specific transactions, by, for example, purchasing a futures contract for each sale made to. Viacom. Its hedging activities were also limited to a fraction of its supply. One of Viacom’s suppliers, Kennecott, did not hedge at all, and Viacom itself never hedged its copper purchases.
C. The Conspiracy
Defendant Sumitomo Corporation is a Japanese trading corporation that attempted to fix and maintain the price of copper at artificially high levels from September 1993 to June 1996, all with an eye to enriching itself in its capacity as a seller of physical copper. Through a series of transactions with defendant Global Minerals and Metals Corporation, a copper merchant, it hoarded vast supplies of physical copper for the purpose-of restricting supply, and it entered into paper transactions in order to show a false increased demand for the metal. In particular, Sumitomo established sham long-term contracts that purportedly required it to purchase vast quantities of copper from Global on a monthly basis over a period of three years. These sham contracts enabled Sumitomo publicly to justify its accumulation of excessive copper forward positions as a hedge. By June 1995, Sumitomo held approximately ten percent of the entire long position in Comex copper futures.
At that time, Sumitomo began to call in shorts to raise copper demand to inflated levels and to reap the profits from its sales. When these contracts came due, short futures traders were forced to cover their positions by acquiring physical copper at inflated prices, because no new copper was entering the warehouses thanks to Sumitomo’s actions. These manipulations caused the price of primary copper to rise more than 50% over a two-year period. In June 1996, the scheme was uncovered, and the trading price for copper dropped by a third almost overnight. The prices of physical copper cathode, rod, and scrap crashed comparably. •
In 1998, the United States Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) determined that Sumitomo had violated the Commodity Exchange Act by raising and fixing the price of copper futures and reached a settlement with the company ■that required it to pay a $150 million fine. That finding has spawned a number of antitrust suits against the defendants, including class action lawsuits on behalf of those who traded copper futures and on behalf of certain purchasers of primary
II. Proceedings in the District Court
These lawsuits were all consolidated in the Western District of Wisconsin by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The defendants include not only Sumitomo and Global, but also alleged co-conspirators Credit Lyonnais Rouse, Ltd. (CLR), and J.P. Morgan and Morgan Guaranty Trust (which have since merged to form JPMorgan Chase & Co. and to whom we refer collectively as JPMorgan Chase). The plaintiffs in each case sought damages for the allegedly inflated overcharge in the price of the copper products they had purchased, which was caused by Sumitomo’s actions. The Scrap Dealers also sought certification of a class under fed. R. Civ. P. 23 consisting of all metals dealers who purchased any form of physical copper in commercial quantities between 1994 and 1996. The defendants moved to dismiss each of the actions.
The district court first denied the motion to dismiss Ocean View’s complaint on May 9, 2000. In re Copper Antitrust Litig., 98 F.Supp.2d 1039 (W.D.Wis.2000). The district court found that if the facts alleged in the complaint were true, Ocean View was a proper party to sue under the principles espoused by this court in Sanner v. Board of Trade, 62 F.3d 918 (7th Cir.1995). The court also denied a motion to dismiss Viacom’s complaint on similar grounds. It allowed both cases to proceed, but limited discovery to the issue of standing.
The court next examined the claim of the Scrap Dealers. It denied their motion for class certification, fundamentally because it concluded that the proposed named plaintiffs could not sue, either for their own injuries or for those of others similarly situated, because they fell within the ban on indirect purchaser suits established by Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 720, 97 S.Ct. 2061. The court decided in addition that the proposed class would be unmanageable, because it would be impossible to ascertain class membership. It then turned to the defendants’ 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. The court found that the Scrap Dealers’ bare-bones allegations were sufficient to state a claim, but that in light of deposition testimony and other facts adduced during litigation of the class certification question, it would nonetheless grant the motion based once again on the perceived Illinois Brick flaw. The court did not, in so ruling, follow the command of Rule 12(b)(6) to convert the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56, despite its reliance on matters outside the complaint. The court also dismissed the Scrap Dealers’ RICO allegations on the same grounds.
Soon thereafter the district court granted JPMorgan Chase’s motion to dismiss all claims that the Scrap Dealers had brought against it on the ground that the plaintiffs were subject to offensive issue preclusion on the pivotal question of their status as indirect purchasers.
After discovery closed in the remaining cases, the defendants filed for summary judgment. On July 23, 2001, the district court granted summary judgment to all of the defendants on Ocean View’s claims, finding that Ocean View had no right to sue under the antitrust laws both because it was an indirect purchaser (Illinois Brick) and because its injuries were too remote (AGC).
III. Use of Rule 12(b)(6)
Before turning to the important antitrust issues underlying all of these appeals, we must deal with an issue of federal civil procedure unique to the appeal of the Scrap Dealers. They argue that the district court committed reversible error by relying on outside materials in evaluating the motion to dismiss without giving them notice and an opportunity to submit additional materials. As they correctly point out, Rule 12(b) requires that if the district court wishes to consider material outside the pleadings in ruling on a motion to dismiss, it must treat the motion as one for summary judgment and provide each party notice and an opportunity to submit affidavits or other additional forms of proof. Fleischfresser v. Directors of School Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 684 (7th Cir.1994). This requirement of a reasonable opportunity to respond is mandatory, not discretionary. Edward Gray Corp. v. National Union Fire Ins. Co., 94 F.3d 363, 366 (7th Cir.1996).
In this case, the district court stated that, considering only the bare pleadings, it would find that the Scrap Dealers had stated a claim. Notwithstanding this conclusion, relying on the materials and affidavits produced for the earlier class certification hearing, it instead granted the defendants’ motion dismissing the case. We agree with the Scrap Dealers that this was error, and that the district court should have given them notice of its intentions and an opportunity to respond and produce additional facts going beyond whatever might have been appropriate for class certification purposes.
The question, however, is what the consequence of this error should be. The Scrap Dealers assume that reversal should be automatic, but this' position overlooks the command of 28 U.S.C. § 2111, which directs appellate courts to apply the harmless error rule to anything that does not affect the “substantial rights of the parties.” We are not aware of any case that holds that the command of Rule 12(b)(6) to convert a motion to dismiss into a summary judgment motion is somehow exempt from § 2111. The question for us is therefore' whether the district court’s error affected the Scrap Dealers’ substantial rights.
To answer that question, we must consider whether the Scrap Dealers have shown us any evidence raising a question of material fact that they would have submitted to the district court had they been given proper notice of the de facto conversion. Burick v. Edward Rose & Sons, 18 F.3d 514, 516 (7th Cir.1994). If
The Scrap Dealers also contend as a threshold matter that the district court’s reliance on materials submitted for the class certification hearing to rule against them on summary judgment violates the dictates of Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974). This over-reads Eisen, in our opinion. Eisen merely indicates that a court may not refuse to certify a class on the ground that it thinks the class will eventually lose on the merits. Id. at 177-78, 94 S.Ct. 2140; see also Szabo v. Bridgeport Mach., Inc., 249 F.3d 672, 677 (7th Cir.2001). It says nothing about whether courts may use evidence produced at a prior class certification hearing for other purposes, including for a decision on summary judgment. We see no reason why these affidavits should be treated any differently from other parts of the record which may be considered in later rulings. See Kochlacs v. Local Bd. No. 92, 476 F.2d 557, 558 n. 1 (7th Cir.1973). We may therefore rely on the materials and affidavits submitted at the class certification hearing in determining whether the district court’s decision to grant the defendants’ motion in the Scrap Dealers’ action was correct.
IV. Illinois Brick
While the Clayton Act permits civil suits by “any person who shall be injured in his business or property,” 15 U.S.C. § 4, courts have long acknowledged that not every person, however tangentially injured by an antitrust violator, may recover treble damages. Blue Shield of Va. v. McCready, 457 U.S. 465, 477, 102 S.Ct. 2540, 73 L.Ed.2d 149 (1982). Numerous doctrines have arisen to clarify the circumstances under which a particular person may recover from an antitrust violator. At times these doctrines are rather incautiously lumped together under the umbrella term of “antitrust standing.” However, the Supreme Court has generally been careful to limit the actual question of standing to the simple inquiry of whether a plaintiff has suffered a redressable injury in fact, entitling the federal courts to hear such a “case or controversy” under Article III. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). There is no dispute that the plaintiffs in these cases have been injured by paying an inflated price for copper; their Article III standing is
Illinois Bnck holds that the direct purchaser from the alleged antitrust violator(s) is the one with the right of action; those further removed from the illegal arrangement may not (under the federal antitrust laws, at least) bring their own actions. 431 U.S. at 729, 97 S.Ct. 2061. In Illinois Brick itself, the defendants were companies who sold bricks to masonry contractors at allegedly inflated prices. The contractors in turn allegedly “passed on” those overcharges to the plaintiffs who purchased their constructed buildings. Id. at 726, 97 S.Ct. 2061. In an earlier decision, Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Mach. Corp., 392 U.S. 481, 88 S.Ct. 2224, 20 L.Ed.2d 1231 (1968), the Supreme Court had decided that defendants could not escape liability on the ground that the plaintiff had passed on the anticompetitive overcharge. By parity of reasoning, the Court decided in Illinois Brick that the persons authorized to sue under the antitrust laws in this type of case were the direct purchasers. Hence, the contractors were permitted to sue and recover in full for the price inflation, including any “pass-on.”
Illinois Brick does not stand for the proposition, as the defendants would seem to have it, that a defendant cannot be sued under the antitrust laws by any plaintiff to whom it does not sell (or from whom it does not purchase). Such a rule would eliminate in one fell swoop all competitor suits based on exclusionary practices — a step that some antitrust theorists have urged, but a step that the Supreme Court has never taken. To the contrary, the Court has made it clear that it does not read Illinois Brick so broadly. For instance, the plaintiff in McCready, who purchased the defendant’s health services from her employer, alleged that a conspiracy between the defendant and psychiatrists increased her costs for visiting a psychologist. 457 U.S. at 468-70, 102 S.Ct. 2540. The defendant contended that after Illinois Brick only the employer who purchased the health plan should be permitted to sue, but the Court disagreed. It held that the chain-of-distribution inquiry in Illinois Brick was meant only to preclude duplicate recovery. While the employer might have suffered some economic injury (through, for example, paying higher wages to attract skilled workers in order to compensate for the illegally inferior benefits), its harm was distinct from the plaintiffs injury, her own out-of-pocket payments for psychological services. Id. at 475,102 S.Ct. 2540.
While it is not identical to this case, McCready is helpful insofar as it recognizes that different injuries in distinct markets may be inflicted by a single antitrust conspiracy, and thus that differently situated plaintiffs might be able to raise claims. The injuries suffered by the copper traders who purchased inflated futures contracts from the defendants are distinct from any harm inflicted on Viacom when it paid inflated cash prices for cathode, or on Ocean View, to the extent it purchased
The reason the plaintiffs’ suit in Illinois Brick failed was not because the. defendants did not sell to them. Rather, it was because the defendants did sell to a third party who (after Hanover Shoe) could recover for any injury they claimed. The same paradigm applies in all of the cases cited by the defendants: Party A, the antitrust violator, sells to Party B, and then Party C, a down-stream purchaser from B, seeks to recover the implicit overcharges that B passed on to C. See, e.g., Kansas v. UtiliCorp United, Inc., 497 U.S. 199, 207, 110 S.Ct. 2807, 111 L.Ed.2d 169 (1990) (public utilities but not residential customers to whom they sell may sue natural gas companies); In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litig., 123 F.3d 599, 606 (7th Cir.1997) (drug wholesalers but not retail pharmacies to whom they sell may recover from manufacturers); McCarthy v. Recordex Serv., Inc., 80 F.3d 842, 852-54 (3d Cir.1996) (attorneys may recover overcharges for copies, but the clients to whom they offer services may not); In re Beef Indus. Antitrust Litig., 710 F.2d 216, 218 (5th Cir.1983) (packers who sell to grocers may recover for their unlawful conduct but feeders who sell to packers may not).
Here, in contrast, the plaintiffs are not indirect purchasers along a supply chain. As far as the plaintiffs’ claims are concerned, Global, CLR, and Sumitomo did not sell cathode to integrated producers who in turn sold to any of the plaintiffs. Instead, the alleged conspiracy operated in the separate but related futures market, through which it sought directly to manipulate the price of copper the plaintiffs were buying. (It is true that Sumitomo Corporation made some sales of cathode, primarily overseas, to reap the benefit of its illegal futures market scheme. None of the plaintiffs, however, is seeking recovery on the basis of any of these cash market sales; all rest solely on the manipulation of sales of futures contracts. Sanner v. Board of Trade, 62 F.3d 918, 929 (7th Cir.1995), discussed below, recognizes such a theory, and we see no reason why the mere existence of separate independent physical transactions should in any way change the analysis.)
The defendants repeatedly urge that the availability of recovery for copper futures traders who bought and sold from the defendants in that market should bar recovery for any plaintiff in the cash market. But this kind of an absolutist approach is ruled out by Banner, which recognized at least one situation in which the futures market and physical market must be evaluated separately. The serious question here is whether these plaintiffs have presented another such instance.
■ In Banner, a group of soybean farmers sued the Chicago Board of Trade alleging that the Board conspired with several individuals artificially to lower the price of soybean futures. The farmers suffered damages when they were forced to sell their soybeans into the cash market at correspondingly low prices. Id. at 921. The district court granted a motion to
This court reversed the dismissal. On the assumption (given the procedural posture of the case) that the farmers’ allegations about the relation between the cash and futures markets were true, and that those market prices “tendfed] to move in lockstep,” we determined that the farmers had suffered sufficiently direct injuries from the conspiracy to proceed with their case. Id. at 929-80. We rejected the proposition that “participants in the futures market were more directly injured,” so as to preclude recovery by farmers in the cash market and denied the defendants’ claim that we should assume at the motion to dismiss stage that damages would be too speculative. Id. at 931. From the perspective of Illinois Brick, the Sanner court expressly found that in the context of a market manipulation scheme, damages inflicted on the physical commodity market were not derivative of injuries in the futures market. Unlike Illinois Brick, the harms incurred in the physical market during a market manipulation are not “secondary consequences arising from an injury to a third party.” Id. at 929. Instead, they form a separate and compen-sable injury.
The defendants’ reading of Illinois Brick is inconsistent with Sanner. Their claims to the contrary, there is no indication in Sanner that the plaintiff soybean farmers were in privity with the Board of Trade, and as a factual matter the assertion is surely wrong. The Board and its members did not sell soybeans to the farmers; like the defendants here they dealt solely with futures contracts. If Illinois Brick bars all recovery here, it should have barred recovery in Sanner and should also bar recovery in group boycott and other restraint of trade settings.
To put it another way, Hanover Shoe, Illinois Brick, and McCready make plain that the antitrust laws create a system that, to the extent possible, permits recovery in rough proportion to the actual harm a defendant’s unlawful conduct causes in the market without complex damage apportionment. This scheme at times favors plaintiffs (.Hanover Shoe) and at times defendants (Illinois Brick), but it never operates entirely to preclude market recovery for an injury. Applying those principles and the decision in Sanner to this case, we conclude that the evidence viewed favorably to the plaintiffs shows that damage from the defendants’ conduct was felt in two separate markets: the futures market and the physical copper market.
V. Associated General Contractors
AGC requires a court to examine through a case-by-case analysis the link between a plaintiffs harm and a defendant’s wrongdoing. 459 U.S. at 535-36, 103 S.Ct. 897. We are to consider a number of factors in this analysis, notably (1) the causal connection between the violation and the harm; (2) the presence of improper motive; (3) the type of injury and whether it was one Congress sought to redress; (4) the directness of the injury; (5) the speculative nature of the damages; and (6) the risk of duplicate recovery or complex damage apportionment. Id. at 537-45, 103 S.Ct. 897; Sanner, 62 F.3d at 927. The defendants concede only the second factor: they admit that each of the plaintiffs has adduced evidence sufficient to survive summary judgment that they intended artificially to inflate the price of both copper futures and physical copper in order to reap millions of dollars in profits. They contest each of the other points.
The first and third factors are discussed only cursorily by the defendants and can be dealt with adequately in the course of our analysis of the remaining three. For example, the defendants claim that there is no causal connection between their actions and any of the plaintiffs’ harms because the plaintiffs’ injuries are indirect (the fourth factor), and they argue that Congress had no intention of redressing this sort of injury because it is indirect and speculative (the fifth factor). We therefore devote our attention to the other three factors, considering in the case of each plaintiff whether its injury was indirect and unpredictable, risked duplicate recovery, and would lead to speculative and complex damage apportionment. We begin with the claims of the Scrap Dealers.
A. Scrap Dealers (Loeb, Nos. 00-3979, 01-1148)
The Scrap Dealers face problems with all three of the contested AGC factors. First, whether or not they were in some sense original purchasers of physical copper, that fact alone is not enough to establish that their injury flowed directly from the defendants’ market manipulations. An injury is still indirect if a plaintiff fails to establish a chain of causation between the harm it has suffered and the defendant’s wrongful acts. AGC, 459 U.S. at 541, 103 S.Ct. 897. The directness inquiry further focuses on the presence of more immediate victims of an antitrust violation in a better position to maintain a treble damages action. “The existence of an identifiable class of persons whose self-interest would normally motivate them to vindicate the public interest in antitrust enforcement diminishes the justification for allowing a more remote party ... to perform the office of a private attorney general.” Id. at 542,103 S.Ct. 897.
There are' numerous other parties who have suffered more direct injuries at the hands of the defendants than the Scrap Dealers suing here. Among them (though as we explain below not limited to them) are the Comex copper futures traders who
The speculative nature of the damages the Scrap Dealers have suffered also supports our conclusion that they cannot maintain this action. See id. at 542-43, 103 S.Ct. 897 (denying a claim that rested on an “abstract conception or speculative measure of harm”). The Scrap Dealers’ economic experts have stated that they can tie a rise in the price of copper futures directly to price increases for physical copper through econometric analysis. Defendants argue to the contrary that a host of other factors are also at play, destroying the closeness of any link. Even accepting the Scrap Dealers’ position on this point, as we must at this stage of the litigation, it is difficult to know whether they have suffered any economic loss at all as a result of the defendants’ actions. After all, the Scrap Dealers, middlemen who resell their scrap copper soon after they purchase it, are alleging that the defendants’ market manipulations caused the price of copper to increase steadily from 1994 to 1996. Therefore, on most or all the sales the Scrap Dealers made in that time frame, which they contend are inflexibly linked to prevailing Comex prices, they should have made a slight profit because of Sumitomo’s actions. Only when the price of copper plummeted in June 1996 would the Scrap Dealers have taken a bath in the resale market. And depending on how much copper the Scrap Dealers had on hand as compared to the number of transactions they made as the price of copper was increasing, it is possible that some of them may have suffered no true economic loss at all. In short, the exact nature of the damages they have suffered is speculative.
The Scrap Dealers attempt to counter this problem by arguing that damages can be set simply by computing the difference between the price of copper that should have prevailed on a given day absent Sum-itomo’s manipulations and the actual price for every copper transaction. This assertion, however, plunges the Scrap Dealers headlong into conflict with the sixth AGC factor, the problems of duplicate damage recovery and complex damage apportionment. The Scrap Dealers argue that they^ — and all other commercial purchasers of physical copper — should be permitted to recover damages equal to three times the overcharge caused by Sumitomo’s scheme for every single sale of copper in the mid-1990s. But this proposition ignores the fact that the same piece of physical copper may be resold many times in a given year as it is refined, distributed, turned into
The Scrap Dealers repeatedly argue that there are no duplicate damages in this case because their pricing decisions are based exclusively on Comex prices rather than a pass-on of historical costs. We fail to see why this fact should lead us to ignore the Supreme Court’s command to prevent the duplicate recovery of antitrust injuries wherever possible. AGC, 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. 897; Greater Rockford Energy & Tech. Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 998 F.2d 391, 396 (7th Cir.1993). The Scrap Dealers’ contention that absent a pass-on of historical costs their injuries are “separate and distinct” defies economic reality. If a scrap dealer purchased a ton of copper when the Comex price was artificially inflated by $400, and the price subsequently rose another $200 prior to resale, it has reaped a $200 gain, not a $400 loss. The Scrap Dealers’ own witnesses admitted that there is no pass-on only “if the current Comex price has moved in an adverse direction.” Yet the evidence shows that Sumitomo’s actions caused the Comex price to rise throughout the period at issue in this case, making us skeptical that the' Scrap Dealers have.suffered any real loss at all.
The fact that the Scrap Dealers here are further down the chain of copper users than others also will increase the economic complexity of apportioning damages. Even the marketing manager of Loeb admitted that such factors as “freight costs, the sizing, sorting, packaging, purity requirements, length of time it took to get paid, [and] the risk of getting paid” all factored into Loeb’s pricing decisions. While it might be possible for economists to factor out each of these considerations for all prior sales involving copper, the Supreme Court has decreed a simpler solution: simply restrict the right to recover to those who are more directly affected by the defendants’ actions. UtiliCorp, 497 U.S. at 208-11, 110 S.Ct. 2807 (noting policy rationales for denying recovery even to those plaintiffs whose damages could be easily calculated). This description applies fully to the plaintiffs here. Because the Scrap Dealers have suffered an indirect injury causing them at best speculative damages that would lead to a strong possibility of duplicative recovery, we agree with the district court that they may not pursue their claims.
B. Viacom and Emerson (No. 01-3485)
1.
Many of the successful arguments from Loeb are echoed by the defendants in the Viacom action, but after a careful review of the record we find that the facts of the latter case compel a different result. The defendants’ first argument for denying recovery to Viacom and Emerson (to whom we will refer as “Viacom” except when distinctions between the two companies are important) is that Viacom has shown no evidence of direct and predictable harm stemming from the defendants’ conduct. As we stated earlier, directness
Next, the defendants rely on the fact that Viacom’s purchases included not only a price linked to Comex but “a variety of discounts or premiums that, in response to changes in supply and demand, varied over time and among suppliers.” The defendants’ experts have opined that, through adjustments of premiums in response to supply and demand factors, the actual impact on the physical copper market of their illegal futures market activities is likely to be indirect and unpredictable.
While all of this might be so as a theoretical matter, on summary judgment it is our duty to evaluate the evidence in the record that Viacom presented. And that evidence paints a starkly different picture. Viacom has introduced into the record both its contracts and its suppliers’ published premiums. After a careful review of these materials, we are convinced that Viacom has established direct injury. In its contracts, Viacom purchased all but a de minimis amount of copper through the two-part formula we described earlier, consisting of (1) a base price equal to the Comex first position copper settlement price, and (2) a cathode premium, negotiated on a monthly or quarterly basis. Over the six years at issue here, the settlement price fluctuated from about 75$ to $1.40 per pound. During the same years, the premium ranged from 2.75 to 3.50$/lb. (Viacom does not seek recovery based on changes in premium prices; the complaint is based only on those caused by variations in the base price.)
The district court ruled that the base price and cathode premium were “inseparable.” After a careful review of the record in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, we are unable to agree with this characterization. All of the contracts specify that the payment price is determined by adding these two separately described components, and the values of both numbers throughout the relevant time period should be available through discovery. The district court also seems to have thought that the premium could in some cases be a discount off the Comex price. There is no evidence to support this; to the contrary, all of the evidence, including defendants’ counsels’ concession at oral argument, indicates that the premium was always a positive number. While Viacom appears to have been awarded volume and cash payment discounts in some instances, there is no indication that these discounts were tied to market conditions, and the defendants do not focus on such discounts in their briefs. Furthermore, the cathode premium was a small fraction of the Co-mex price. In fact, the evidence shows that as the Comex price increased, the premium also increased. Thus, there is no possibility that the two components “offset” or that the premium somehow compensated for the defendants’ manipulated
Furthermore, the experts note that Comex quotes 24 different exchange prices at any given- time and that the defendants’ actions could have affected each of those prices differently. Accepting the truth of this statement, we do not see why it compels a finding that Viacom’s injury is indirect. According to the record evidence, out of-this menu of prices, Viacom used just one (the monthly settlement price) as the basis for all but a minuscule number of its contract purchases, and Emerson used only two. While acknowledging this, the defendants contend that other cathode purchasers could have used different or widely varying systems. Perhaps they did, and if so perhaps they should be found to be improper plaintiffs under the antitrust laws, though that is an issue for another day. But this, fact does not weaken the direct causal chain between the defendants’ actions and these particular plaintiffs’ harm and is no more reason to deny Viacom and Emerson recovery than the fact that some purchasers might have bought cathode at prices not tied to those on either Comex or the LME.
Similarly, we reject the defendants’ argument that because a number of Viacom’s contracts contained clauses permitting the parties to renegotiate the base price if they believed that Comex prices did not accurately reflect market conditions, Viacom’s injuries are somehow remote and indirect. It is undisputed that, because of the success of the defendants’ conspiracy, Viacom and its integrated suppliers were never aware of the artificial Comex inflation and so never took advantage of this clause. Instead, Viacom based all of the purchases for which it seeks recovery directly on Comex.
We also believe that, contrary to the defendants’ contentions, our holding on this point is entirely consistent with the Second Circuit’s decision in Reading Indus., Inc. v. Kennecott Copper Corp., 631 F.2d 10, 13-14 (2d Cir.1980). There, the plaintiff, a refiner of scrap copper, alleged that the defendant-integrated producers had conspired to keep the price of refined copper low and that this conspiracy injured it by artificially raising the price of scrap. Id. at 12. The court found the injury indirect because it “depend[ed] upon a complicated series of market interactions,” including the actions and pricing decisions of refiners, fabricators, dealers, speculators, and consumers of copper. Id. at 13. Such “conjectural theories of injury and attenuated economic causality” were enough to render Reading’s injury indirect. Id. at 14.
Other than the fact that both Reading and the present case involve price-fixing conspiracies in the physical copper market, we find little similarity between them. The injury here does not depend on the speculative actions of innumerable market decision makers. It flows instead directly
In sum, Viacom’s contracts and the other record evidence establish a direct relation between the defendants’ illegal scheme and Viacom’s harm. The contract price it paid its suppliers for copper was directly and explicitly based on the Comex monthly settlement price, and therefore the defendants’ manipulations directly and predictably had an impact on that price. Amarel v. Connell, 102 F.3d 1494, 1512 (9th Cir.1997) (injury direct where price of milled rice directly affected price of paddy rice); Sanner, 62 F.3d at 929. Any variations in the cathode premium moved in the same direction as the manipulation and could not have limited or mitigated this harm. For these reasons, Viacom has established the directness element of AGC.
2.
We turn next to the district court’s other major reason for granting the defendants summary judgment: its belief that opening the door to Viacom’s suit would inevitably lead to either duplicate recovery or complex damage apportionment. See AGC, 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. 897. The court cited at least three manifestations of this problem, all involving Viacom’s integrated suppliers, such as As-arco. First, it believed that Viacom’s claim would duplicate Asarco’s because As-arco could assert claims for its raw material purchases from third parties, and those raw material prices are tied to Comex. Second, because Asarco purchased some cathode from third parties, both it and Viacom would be permitted to recover and duplicate each other’s damages. Third, Viacom’s claim would duplicate Asarco’s because Asarco hedged by purchasing put options on Comex. In addition to those three points, the court noted that Asarco has recovered damages in a California state court class action, and it thought that this too should preclude Viacom from recovering.
We begin with the defendants’ claim that Asarco’s purchase of raw materials, such as ore, concentrate, blister, and anode, all of which it transformed into cathode, should bar recovery. This does not follow. Practically every product is created through the use of some kind of raw materials, but that fact does not prevent the direct purchaser of the finished product from suing its manufacturer under the antitrust laws, as long as the direct purchaser is not trying to attack a price-fixing arrangement at the raw materials level. The defendants’ own experts testified that while raw material prices “may be indirectly affected” by price manipulations, a squeeze or corner on cathode — the only copper product traded on Comex and the LME' — would not directly harm purchasers of these raw materials. Instead, raw material prices vary widely and contain various discounts off the Comex price to account for such factors as the expected cost of conversion into cathode, which in turn varies based on supply, demand, and current refining and smelting capacity.
We agree with the broad proposition that a party cannot recover when others more directly injured are better able to state a claim. AGC, 459 U.S. at 544-45, 103 S.Ct. 897. Indeed, we have just applied this very principle to deny recovery to the Scrap Dealers, who are farther down the chain of resale, even though scrap prices too are tied to Comex. For parallel reasons, raw materials purchasers are also ill-suited to bring an antitrust claim. Permitting both raw materials pur
More bite lies in the argument that recovery should be denied because some of the cathode Asarco sold Viacom was purchased before, although this claim is not as strong as it might at first appear. As the district court noted, some if not most of the cathode Viacom pm-chased had never before been purchased in cathode form. Asarco sold Viacom 510 million pounds of cathode between 1990 and 1996. During that time frame, Asarco refined 6.4 billion pounds of cathode and purchased 153 million pounds from third parties, about 2.3% of its output. Because copper is fungible, one cannot tell whether any given Viacom purchase of cathode consisted of cathode refined by Asarco or previously purchased product.
We do not believe the mere existence of third-party cathode presents such a risk of duplicate recovery as to justify the extreme step of denying recovery altogether. Had the Board of Trade in San-ner produced evidence that farmers on some rare occasions bought soybeans from neighboring farms and then resold them along with the soybeans they grew themselves, that would not have provided a reason to deny recovery entirely. Similarly, if Viacom can prove at trial that 97.7% of all copper Asarco sold it was cathode it had refined itself, then Viacom should be permitted to recover 97.7% of its proved damages from cathode purchases. Cf. Paper Sys., Inc. v. Nippon Paper Indus. Co., 281 F.3d 629, 633 (7th Cir.2002) (carving out indirect purchases while still leaving open possibility of recovery for direct purchases). The physical copper market is complicated, but not so complicated that one cannot estimate to a reasonable degree of accuracy the amount of damage a party has sustained. It is certainly acceptable through expert economic testimony to make a reasonable ¡estimation of actual damages through probability and inferences. See Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 124, 89 S.Ct. 1562, 23 L.Ed.2d 129 (1969). ‘Where the tort itself is of such a nature as to preclude the ascertainment of the amount of damages with certainty it would be a perversion of fundamental principles of justice 'to deny all relief to the injured person.” Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 563, 51 S.Ct. 248, 75 L.Ed. 544 (1931). While we are not permitted to make complex damage apportionments in antitrust cases, AGC, 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. 897,
The defendants’ next major attack rests on hedging. Commodities exchanges function in part to protect participants in a physical market by shifting some of the risk (and damage) caused by fluctuations in price to participants in the futures market. Extending this principle, Global and CLR claim that through an extremely complicated set of economic interactions between the cash and futures markets, the damages experienced in the physical cathode market will be duplicated in their entirety by damages suffered in the futures market. Therefore, only futures traders, and not cash market participants, should be permitted to recover.
The hedging theories advocated by the defendants are based on economic theory, with no specific application of that theory here that would correlate sales in the cash market and sales in the futures market. Notably, Viacom’s individual purchases from its suppliers were not hedged. Neither Viacom nor Asarco purchased a futures contract as a hedge every time they exchanged copper. Had they done so, then perhaps one might be able to “match” each physical market transaction to a futures contract sale and argue that the opportunity for a trader to recover the overcharge in a federal lawsuit should preclude recovery for the overcharged physical market participant. Emerson’s supplier, Phelps Dodge, did hedge some of its sales to Emerson. On remand, the district court should explore further whether these hedging transactions would lead to some degree of duplicate recovery and a corresponding need to reduce damages. Nevertheless, since our review of the record indicates that not all of Phelps Dodge’s sales were hedged, we conclude that Emerson is an appropriate plaintiff for the same reasons as Viacom.
In any event, the kind of futures matching the defendants’ postulate does not reflect the way that most hedging works in the copper futures market. Asarco did not buy futures. Instead, it purchased put options. Put options are strategic hedges designed to protect against a general risk of declining cathode prices. With a put option, Asarco had the right, but not the obligation, to sell a futures contract if the price fell below a certain “strike” price. See United States v. Catalfo, 64 F.3d 1070, 1072 (7th Cir.1995). But as the defendants were artificially inflating the price of cathode throughout the period at issue here, the price never would have fallen below the strike price. Therefore, no sale ever would have gone forward and the only damages Asarco would have suffered from the conspiracy would have been the cost of the put option, or, more properly, the amount by which the price of the put option changed because the price of copper was artificially high.
The defendants and their experts have made no attempt to correlate the damages Asarco could theoretically recover on the futures market for its put options to the specific damages sought here by Viacom, and the relationship is far from intuitively obvious. Instead, the experts trace the potential for hedging by numerous parties upstream and downstream from Viacom and contend that because so many participants in the copper industry use so many different forms of hedging there will be
This sort of potential duplication bears no resemblance to the duplication rejected in Illinois Brick and AGC, 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. 897, nor do we think that it independently provides a reason to deny recovery to Viacom. In Illinois Brick, any “pass-on” of damages would (because of Hanover Shoe) already be taken into account in its entirety in the recovery to another potential party, the direct purchaser. 431 U.S. at 737-38, 97 S.Ct. 2061. This simply is not the case here. Asarco strategically hedged only about half its output. The defendants claim that potential hedging by those parties to whom Viacom sold and from whom Asarco purchased raw materials is also relevant, but this cannot be so under Sanner. There we held that injuries incurred in futures market purchases not linked to any particular cash market purchases did not “duplicate” and were not more “direct” than the cash market injuries. 62 F.3d at 929-30. Because there are two separate markets, each with compensable injuries, the opportunity for recovery in one market does nothing to alleviate the harm in the other. For similar reasons, the fact that Comex futures traders have received money in a now-settled lawsuit says nothing about the ability of Viacom or other similarly situated plaintiffs in the cash market to recover.
Finally, the defendants note that Asarco and three of the manufacturers’ other suppliers have recovered in a lawsuit brought in California state court. This lawsuit was brought pursuant to California law, which permits suit by indirect purchasers. Union Carbide Corp. v. Superior Ct., 36 Cal.3d 15, 201 Cal.Rptr. 580, 679 P.2d 14, 16 (1984). However, the supposed “duplication” here comes from different bodies in our federal system seeking to remedy separate harms. It presents no risk of duplicate recovery for the same injury under the same law and is thus no bar to the plaintiffs’ recovery. See Browning-Ferris Indus. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U.S. 257, 109 S.Ct. 2909, 106 L.Ed.2d 219 (1989) (upholding award of both federal antitrust and state tort damages); California v. ARC Am. Corp., 490 U.S. 93, 109 S.Ct. 1661, 104 L.Ed.2d 86 (1989) (permitting states to require offenders to pay both state damages to indirect purchasers and federal treble damages to direct purchasers). If the resolution of the state court action poses a problem at all to these plaintiffs, it would be in the nature of claim or issue preclusion. See Matsushita Electric Indus. Co. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, 116 S.Ct. 873, 134 L.Ed.2d 6 (1996); Marrese v. American Acad, of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 105 S.Ct. 1327, 84 L.Ed.2d 274 (1985). It is possible that the defendants have waived their right to assert any such defense; it is not mentioned in them briefs before this court. Accordingly, we express no opinion at this time on the merits of any preclusion argument.
In sum, of all participants in the physical market, Viacom and other first purchasers of cathode are the only plaintiffs possibly situated to recover damages against the defendants for the anti-competitive harms they have inflicted on the physical market for copper cathode. Faced with the option of permitting a clear, non-speculative harm to the cash market to go unremedied or of allowing the plaintiffs’ suit to go forward, we elect the latter. As narrowed to first purchases, there is no danger of duplication of recovery, and so, under AGC and Sanner, the claim should proceed to trial.
3.
The final broad claim of the defendants is that recovery of damages in this case simply would be too speculative
We fully recognize that perfecting such economic analysis, tracking every pound of cathode refined or purchased by Viacom’s suppliers, and locating every cathode contract Viacom entered into over a six-year span will not be easy. But complex litigation is hardly new for the federal courts, whether it is in the field of antitrust, environmental clean-ups, pension law, or accounting frauds. The key here is that the damages are not inherently speculative in the sense that AGC used that term. See 459 U.S. at 542, 103 S.Ct. 897. Nor, as in Illinois Brick or Hanover Shoe, is a party asking a jury or the district court to perform some form of econometric analysis to deduce whether all, some, or none of an overcharge was passed on down a chain of distribution. Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 727, 97 S.Ct. 2061. Instead, one need only determine through available records what percentage of cathode bought by Viacom represents first purchases. This is not speculative or complex, only time-consuming, and we are confident that the parties and their counsel are up to the task.
The defendants’ entire case theory, apparent not only here but also through their discussion of duplication and hedging, seems to be the troubling one because their scheme was so evil, went undetected for so long, and caused so much economic loss throughout the cash market, that we should simply give them a pass from the antitrust laws. This is not now and never has been the law. Since the days of Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Materials Co., 273 U.S. 359, 379, 47 S.Ct. 400, 71 L.Ed. 684 (1927), it has been established that in complicated antitrust cases plaintiffs are permitted to use estimates and analysis to calculate a reasonable approximation of their damages. While we fully agree that we should not use the massiveness of defendants’ conspiracy as an excuse to punish them unduly (by, for example, permitting the Scrap Dealers in Loeb to recover for harms that would duplicate those of Viacom), the sensible solution is to let one' — but only one — level of purchasers
C. Ocean View (Nos. 01-3229, 01-3230)
We turn to the final plaintiff, Ocean View. We have already rejected the defendants’ principal argument for affirming summary judgment in this case, that the action is barred by the Illinois Brick direct purchaser rule. For the same reasons discussed in connection with Viacom’s action, there is no party along a chain of distribution between Ocean View and any of the defendants who can recover for an alleged overcharge. Therefore, Illinois Brick is inapplicable. Instead, this case is controlled by the basic premise of Sanner, 62 F.3d at 929-30, which holds that a cash market participant injured by a party’s illegal actions in the futures market may, in some instances, sue that party under the federal antitrust laws. The controlling factors in this inquiry are those set out in AGC, 459 U.S. at 537-45, 103 S.Ct. 897. The defendants allege that under an analysis of these factors, Ocean View’s claim should still be precluded, while Ocean View contends that it should be entitled to recover for every copper rod .it has ever purchased, or, in the alternative, that it may recover at least for those instances where it was the first purchaser of copper in cathode form.
As with the Scrap Dealers, we must reject Ocean View’s proposition that it can recover for rod manufactured from cathode purchased by others, such as its semi-fabricators. Such an injury would be indirect because the semi-fabricator would serve as a more immediate victim of the antitrust violation intended to affect the cash and futures markets for • cathode. AGC, 459 U.S. at 541-42, 103 S.Ct. 897; supra at 484-85. Semi-fabricators who purchased cathode would stand in shoes similar to those of Viacom, purchasing large quantities of cathode to reshape and sell as rod or wire. Because they are well-situated to bring any claim for inflation in the physical market, there is no need for Ocean View, as a more remote party, to step in “to vindicate the public interest in antitrust enforcement.” AGC, 459 U.S. at 542, 103 S.Ct. 897.
Additionally, granting recovery to both a semi-fabricator for its cathode purchase and Ocean View for its purchase of that same cathode reshaped as rod would lead to either duplicate recovery or complex damage apportionment in violation of the principles underlying AGC. 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. 897. We have already rejected the claim that the copper market should not be subject to a ban on duplicate recovery because copper pricing decisions are based on Comex and not a “pass on” of historical costs, supra at 486. To avoid such duplicate recovery one must either attempt to apportion damages along a chain of distribution, forbidden by AGC, or deny the right to sue to all but one plaintiff along the chain of distribution.
The best-situated plaintiff to recover is the first purchaser of copper cathode, the specific commodity the defendants targeted in their futures market conspiracy. For such a plaintiff, it is possible both to avoid duplicate recovery problems and at the same time to ensure that antitrust harm perpetrated in the cash market will not go unremedied. Based upon on our review of the record, we are satisfied that in at least some cases Ocean View did purchase cathode refined by integrated producers. The existence of such pur
We have already rejected most of the other claims the defendants make for denying Ocean View recovery, including the proposition that the integrated producers’ purchase of copper raw materials should somehow render them improper plaintiffs, supra, at 489, and the claim that hedging on the copper futures markets by some physical market participants renders the injury indirect or duplicative, supra at 491-92. Finally, we have found that the damages claimed are not too speculative or complex, supra at 492-93.
At this point we can think of only one possible distinction between Ocean View and Viacom that deserves further comment. That is the fact that while Viacom purchased cathode, Ocean View bought cathode that had been tolled into rod. The parties do not focus on this distinction much in their briefs, and the defendants concede that there is no physical difference between cathode and rod other than the product’s shape. Based upon our review of the contracts in the record, the price Ocean View paid its integrated producers for rod appears to be identical to that paid by Viacom for cathode except for the existence of an additional rod premium. We assume, since the defendants do not contend otherwise, that like the cathode premium, the rod premium is a small fraction of the total price paid and tends to increase as the Comex price increases, so that it does not in some way offset the Comex inflation or render the injury indirect. In that case, the similarities between cathode and rod are close enough that, in instances where the same integrated producer refines raw materials into cathode and then shapes it into rod, Ocean View, as the first purchaser after the materials are formed into cathode, can state a claim, regardless of whether that copper is then in the form of cathode or rod. Cf. In re Sugar Indus. Antitrust Litig., 579 F.2d 13, 17-18 (3d Cir.1978) (finding no distinction for AGC purposes between price-fixed sugar and candy incorporating that price-fixed sugar sold into the market for the first time).
VI.
In addition to their points under Illinois Brick and AGC, the various plaintiffs make arguments specific to their own cases. Most of these involve procedural issues. We consider these points in turn, on an issue-by-issue basis.
A. RICO and State Law Claims
We begin once again with the Loeb action. Our determination that the AGC factors prevent the Scrap Dealers from pursuing their antitrust claims disposes of their remaining claims against Sumitomo and Global for violations of RICO and state law. It is also dispositive of all claims against JPMorgan Chase.
The district court dismissed the Scrap Dealers’ RICO claims on the ground that the AGC factors apply equally to RICO. The Scrap Dealers, however, argue that even if their antitrust claim fails, their RICO case should proceed. This claim
The Scrap Dealers also assert that the district court erred in finding that they had abandoned their state law claims. On this point, they appear to be correct. There is certainly no evidence in the record that the Scrap Dealers voluntarily dismissed or failed to pursue their various state law claims. The defendants argue that these claims were abandoned when the Scrap Dealers attempted to certify a class for the federal antitrust claims but not for the state claims. But no inference of abandonment should flow from a limited request for a class action; to the contrary, fed. R. Crv. P. 23(c)(4)(A) specifically recognizes that “an action may be brought or maintained as a class action with respect to particular issue's.” It would be entirely consistent with the rule to seek certification on issues governed by federal law, while declining to do so for more particularized state law issues. Nevertheless, the fact remains that we have dismissed all of the Scrap Dealers’ federal claims against Sumitomo and Global. Since the Scrap Dealers have asserted no independent basis for federal subject matter jurisdiction, it is entirely appropriate to dismiss the state law claims, though without prejudice. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); Oates v. Discovery Zone, 116 F.3d 1161, 1173 n. 12 (7th Cir.1997).
B. Issue Preclusion: JPMorgan Chase
The district court dismissed the Scrap Dealers’ claims against JPMor-gan Chase on issue preclusion grounds. To prove that issue preclusion applies, the defendant must establish that (1) the plaintiff was fully represented in the prior litigation, (2) the issues to be precluded are identical to those in the prior litigation, (3) the issues were actually litigated and decided on the merits, and (4) resolution of the issue was necessary to the judgment. People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. of Educ., 68 F.3d 172, 178 (7th Cir.1995). The Scrap Dealers’ claims against JPMorgan Chase arise from an alleged conspiracy between JPMorgan Chase and Sumitomo in which JPMorgan Chase’s metals desk somehow furthered the conspiracy through its own copper purchases on the LME. The issue the defendants sought to preclude, that of the Scrap Dealers’ ability to recover as a proper plaintiff under the antitrust laws, was actually litigated and decided on the merits in their suit against Sumitomo. That is enough to bind the Scrap Dealers, who have now had their day in court, with respect to JPMorgan Chase as well.
The Scrap Dealers argue, however, that their day in court was flawed, because they did not have an opportunity to litigate these issues fully before the district court. Their only support for this contention is the fact that the district court turned Sum-itomo’s motion to dismiss into a summary judgment motion without.notice to them. As we have already noted, this action by the district court, while in error, did not prejudice the Scrap Dealers. The antitrust issues were fully litigated by counsel, albeit at the class certification stage. Be
C. Statement of Claim Against CLR
CLR advances one final argument in support of the judgment in both Viacom and Ocean View, which applies only to itself and not to its co-defendants. The district court stated in the Viacom action that, while it would not “address the issue in any detail,” it believed that Viacom had made an inadequate showing that CLR’s activities in any way affected the prices Viacom paid for copper. CLR urges this as an alternate ground for affirmance.
The procedural history of this argument is complex and seems to have engendered a great deal of enmity between the parties. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the standing question in the Viacom action. In its lengthy joint motion with Global, CLR never argued that its role in the conspiracy was too attenuated to have directly affected the Comex price. The issue was first raised in CLR’s response to Viacom’s cross-motion. Viacom, in reply, pointed to evidence in the record that addressed this new argument. The district court struck these submissions as untimely. This, however, was in error. Viacom had no obligation to produce specific evidence of CLR’s role to survive CLR’s motion for summary judgment since the issue was never raised by CLR at that stage. Aviles v. Cornell Forge Co., 183 F.3d 598, 604-05 (7th Cir.1999). Because CLR raised this argument in an untimely manner, the district court should not have considered it as a ground for summary judgment without giving Viacom “notice and a fair opportunity to present arguments and evidence in response.” Id. By striking the materials Viacom submitted, the district court denied just that opportunity. Of course, since we are remanding this case on other grounds, the issue may resurface again after further discovery. At that point, ■ considering all evidence in the record, the district court may properly evaluate — after considering all record evidence — whether either Viacom or Ocean View has presented enough to connect' CLR to any violation of the antitrust laws. For the foregoing reasons, we also deny CLR’s motion to strike.
D. Aiding and Abetting: JPMorgan Chase
Another minor issue crops up only in Ocean View, but it too can be disposed of easily. JPMorgan Chase asserts that the district court incorrectly denied its motion to' dismiss on the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim against it because it only aided and abetted the conspiracy between Sumitomo and Global. But Ocean View is not attempting to state an “aiding and abetting” case. Its allegation is that JPMorgan Chase was a participant in the conspiracy to manipulate the copper market. To state such a claim, Ocean View need only prove that JPMor-gan Chase knew Sumitomo intended to restrain trade, intended that trade be restrained, and materially contributed to that restraint. 7 Phillip E. Areeda, Antitrust Law: An Analysis of Antitrust Principles and Their Application, ¶ 1474a (1986); Poller v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 368 U.S. 464, 470, 82 S.Ct. 486, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962). A broad reading of
E. Reinstatement of Claims
Only a few brief housekeeping matters remain. In both Viacom and Ocean View, the district court also granted the defendants summary judgment on their RICO and fraud claims because RICO contains rules similar to the Clayton Act for identifying proper plaintiffs. International Bhd. of Teamsters, 196 F.3d at 825. Having found that the plaintiffs here may pursue their antitrust claims, the RICO claims must be reinstated as well. The same goes for the state law claims. They were dismissed without prejudice in Viacom only because all federal claims had dropped out of the case. Finally, in Ocean View, the district court dismissed Ocean View’s claim under Rhode Island state law on the ground that Rhode Island law imposed standing requirements similar to those of federal law. Expressing no opinion on the merits of that determination, we note that since we have found that Ocean View may proceed on at least some of its claims under federal law, the dismissal of the Rhode Island claim on similar grounds must be reconsidered.
VII.
To summarize, we Modify the dismissal of the state law claims in No. 00-3979 to reflect that this dismissal was without prejudice. In all other respects we Affirm the judgment of the district court. We also Affirm the judgment in No. 01-1148. On the other hand, we find that Viacom, Emerson, and Ocean View are not indirect purchasers under Illinois Brick, and then-injury is direct, predictable, and unlikely to produce duplicate recovery or speculative damages. Therefore, in Nos. 01-3229, 01-3230, and 01-3485, we Reverse the judgment of the district court and Remand for further proceedings.
jact tjjat defendants were hoping to profit in the physical market, ultimately, through their manipulation of the separate futures market, also has implications for their arguments related to the so-called "umbrella standing” theory. The defendants object to the possibility that they might be held responsible for higher copper prices throughout the physical market, rather than just for the sales they made. If this were an ordinary cartel case, in which cartel members A and B sell to customers X and Y, and then non-cartel member firm C makes sales at or near the enhanced cartel price to customer Z, the question arises whether A and B are liable to Z for the overcharges it paid. See generally, ABA Section of Antitrust Law, 1 Antitrust Developments (Fourth) at 778-79 & n. 128 (1997) (collecting cases on umbrella standing). Here, however, we have a conspiracy to rig prices for the entire physical market, accomplished through manipulation of the Comex futures market. Another possible analogy might be to rigging product standards, which affects everyone who tries to participate in a particular product market. In the latter case, the defendants who manipulated the standards cannot be heard to complain that they
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in Nos. 00-3979 and 01-1148 and concurring in the judgments in Nos. 01-3485, 01-3229 and 01-3230.
I join in the outcomes reached by the majority in the several cases, but I write separately to question the appropriateness of finding a “lockstep” relationship between the copper futures and cash markets in the analysis of the claims of Viacom, Emerson and Ocean View.
The analysis and outcome in Sanner (which relied on the allegations of a complaint, not a summary judgment record) were based on the thesis that the futures market and the cash market tended to move in “lockstep.” Thus, the relationship of futures prices of soybeans on the Chicago Board of Trade and the cash price of soybeans to be realized by farmers could be assumed to be simple, direct and absolutely predictable. “The futures market and the cash market for soybeans are ... ‘so closely related’ that the distinction between them is of no consequence to antitrust standing analysis.” 62 F.3d at 929. Based on the complaint, there could be no question that a given manipulation of the futures market produced a precisely proportionate consequence in the cash market.
With respect to the possibility of dupli-cative recovery, Sanner is also quite distinguishable. There the plaintiff-farmers produced the commodity, bought none of it and there was no trade in any precursor raw material. Here the plaintiff-manufacturers bought from integrated producers, which purchased from others substantial quantities of copper cathode and pre-ea-thode copper raw material (the price of which also tended to follow the copper futures market).
I believe, therefore, that the case before us, although it seeks to apply Sanner’s principle, may be a major step beyond Sanner. The outcome, however, may be justified insofar as there is sufficient evidence that the defendants engaged in massive physical cathode transactions and intended to manipulate physical prices as well as futures prices and thus to injure purchasers such as the plaintiffs.- See Sanner, 62 F.3d at 929 (“even if we were to assume ... that there is a distinction between markets that is relevant to antitrust standing, the farmers here have alleged that one of the CBOT’s objectives in adopting the Resolution was to prompt a price decline in the cash market for soybeans.”).
