In Bailey Lumber & Supply Co. et al. v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. et al., Southern District of Mississippi Judge Louis Guirola, Jr. has approved a bid by building products manufacturers Georgia-Pacific Co., Weyerhaeuser Co., and Louisiana-Pacific Corp., to dismiss claims of an antitrust conspiracy to fix prices for plywood. The plaintiffs, Bailey Lumber & Supply Co. and 84 Lumber Co., accuse the defendants of conspiring to fix prices of oriented strand board and plywood in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The Court held that in order to state a claim for violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act under the standard articulated in Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, plaintiffs must allege more than just evidence that companies engaged in similar behaviors, but facts that, if true, would indicate a plot was afoot, which plaintiffs in this case failed to do.
Previously, the court had granted building products distributor BlueLinx Corp.’s bid to be dismissed because the information sharing in which it was alleged to have participated could have no anticompetitive effect.