Canada’s Highest Court Decides To Address Indirect Purchaser Class Certification Issue

In Pro-Sys Consultants Ltd. et al. v. Microsoft Corp. et al., Canada’s highest court granted defendants leave to appeal the decision from a Quebec appeals court that granted class certification to indirect purchasers of dynamic random access memory.  This is the third case addressing this issue that is now pending before the Supreme Court of Canada.  All three cases are asking the Canadian Supreme Court to settle a question that the U.S. Supreme Court resolved more than 30 years ago in Illinois Brick, when the justices concluded that only those who bought allegedly price-fixed products directly from cartel participants could sue for damages under the Sherman Act.  While vast majority of the Canadian antitrust class actions include indirect purchaser claims, the courts have not applied Illinois Brick logic in Canada because Canadian law has remained murky about whether indirect purchaser claims were available.  But after the Canadian high court rejected the notion of a pass-on defense in a tax case in 2007, the British Columbia Court of Appeal concluded that the same logic would apply in antitrust litigation and eventually denied certification in the Microsoft and ADM cases.  The hearing on all three cases is scheduled for late October.

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