In In Re: Alftermarket Filters Antitrust Litigation, MDL, Northern District of Illinois Judge Robert W. Gettleman has rejected a request by manufacturers including Honeywell International Inc., Wix Filtration Corp., and United Components Inc. to dismiss consolidated putative class action suits alleging price-fixing in the market for automotive filters under heightened pleading standards of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. The court held that plaintiffs’ claims, which are based on eyewitness accounts, are more than sufficient to proceed. In their suit, plaintiffs allege a number of specific instances of price-fixing conversations, based on “an actual agreement initiated by specified persons, witnessed in its inception and on several later occasions by an actual participant in the price-fixing scheme.” In rejecting defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court held that “although the series of alleged price-fixing arrangements among the defendants was followed by parallel rises in prices, the complaint does not rely on only the alleged parallel conduct to imply a conspiracy… . The plausibility of conspiracy is buttressed by the allegations concerning the concentration of the filters industry, the maturity of the market, the fungibility of the products, the lack of brand loyalty, and the importance of the price in determining consumer purchasing decisions.”