Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-md-02801/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-md-02801-34/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 410
Nature of Suit: Antitrust
Cause of Action: 15:1 Antitrust Litigation

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IN RE CAPACITORS ANTITRUST 

LITIGATION

MDL Case No. 17-md-02801-JD 

Case No. 14-cv-03264-JD

OMNIBUS ORDER RE DAUBERT

MOTIONS AND MOTION FOR 

DECERTIFICATION

Re: Dkt. Nos. 647, 661, 669, 672, 992

I. DIRECT PURCHASER CLASS’S MOTION TO PARTIALLY EXCLUDE 

PROPOSED EXPERT TESTIMONY OF JANUSZ A. ORDOVER (MDL #669)

GRANTED. The DPPs move to exclude Ordover’s opinion that “[t]he episodes of price 

fixing to which NCC has pled guilty are unlikely to have had broad impacts given features of the 

marketplace.” Dkt. No. 667-4 at 1. DPPs object to this opinion because of its premise as stated by 

Ordover: “Although NCC pled guilty to fixing prices of ‘certain electrolytic capacitors’ in its plea 

agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, [] counsel for NCC has informed me that the 

episodes of price fixing to which NCC pled guilty all involve prices for a narrow set of products or 

customers.” Id.

What “counsel for NCC” might have told Ordover is not consistent with NCC’s plea 

agreement in United States of America v. Nippon Chemi-Con Corporation, Case No. 4:17-CR00540-JD, Dkt. No. 54. NCC admitted to participating in a conspiracy among manufacturers of 

electrolytic capacitors from “at least as early as November 2001 until in or about January 2014,” 

the primary purpose of which was to “fix prices and rig bids of certain electrolytic capacitors

manufactured outside of the United States and sold in the United States and elsewhere.” Nothing 

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in the plea agreement supports the characterization that NCC pled guilty only to “episodes of price 

fixing . . . all involv[ing] prices for a narrow set of products or customers.” 

Consequently, Ordover’s opinion is neither reliable nor relevant, and it is excluded. 

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 593-94 (1993); FRE 702. Ordover 

is not, however, barred from testifying about the underlying “features of the marketplace,” subject 

to additional challenges to any such testimony DPPs may raise at trial.

II. DIRECT PURCHASER CLASS AND INDIRECT PURCHASER PLAINTIFFS’

MOTION TO EXCLUDE, IN PART, THE PROPOSED EXPERT TESTIMONY OF 

SPENCER L. SIMONS (MDL #672)

GRANTED IN PART. Simons is an engineer and businessperson who has worked in the 

capacitors industry for decades. Defendants agree that he is not an “expert on collusion, antitrust 

issues generally, or on the specific topic of establishing antitrust impact.” Dkt. No. 791-4 at 19. 

As such, his conclusions given in his report such as that “it is highly unlikely that the defendant 

capacitor manufacturers successfully colluded . . . during the Relevant Period” are not admissible 

under Federal Rules of Evidence 702, 402 and 403. Testimony and opinions by Simons about 

collusion, violations of antitrust law, or antitrust impact -- topics for which he possesses no 

specialized knowledge, and which likely amount to inadmissible legal opinions -- are not reliable

and not admissible under Rule 702, and would confuse and mislead the jury. FRE 403. They are 

excluded from trial. 

Testimony by Simons on the technical and commercial aspects of the capacitors industry,

as observed by him during his time in the industry, are admissible. This includes Simons’ 

opinions about capacitor substitutability and his “market and product analysis.” Testimony along

these lines seems to be based on his own experience and observations, and the opinions are likely 

to be relevant to the facts of this case as well. DPPs themselves acknowledge that Simons “might 

be qualified to provide observations about what he has seen in the capacitors market.” Dkt. No. 

672 at 10. Testimony in this topic area is admissible, subject to a foundation at trial that he is 

qualified to offer those opinions.

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III. DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO EXCLUDE THE PROPOSED EXPERT 

TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES T. MCCLAVE (MDL #661)

DENIED. The bulk of defendants’ challenges -- that McClave failed to account for 

individual pricing circumstances and ignored “undisputed marketplace facts” in constructing his 

regression analysis -- were considered in detail and denied at the class certification stage of this 

case. Those determinations need not, and will not, be reconsidered. As the Court held, challenges 

to the variables in his model “do not go to the admissibility of his opinions, but rather to matters of 

weight and probative value for a jury to evaluate.” In re Capacitors Antitrust Litigation, No. 17-

md-2801-JD, 2018 WL 5980139, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 14, 2018). What McClave “did or didn’t 

take into account” in constructing his analysis “may be grist for a good cross-examination at trial, 

but they do not play a material role in deciding whether Dr. McClave’s work should be admitted 

under Rule 702.” Id. Defendants’ argument that the Daubert standard should be applied more 

rigorously at successive stages of the case is without support in Daubert itself or subsequent 

binding authority, and certainly is not stated in the case defendants cite. See Sali v. Corona 

Regional Medical Center, 909 F.3d 996, 1006 (9th Cir. 2018) (“Indeed, in evaluating challenged 

expert testimony in support of class certification, a district court should evaluate admissibility 

under the standard set forth in Daubert.”). There is no Daubert “lite” served in the afternoon of 

litigation, to be followed by full-proof Daubert at the main course of trial. 

If anything, the soundness of the Court’s prior Daubert determinations was underscored by 

the “hot tub” proceeding between the competing experts. The candid and unmediated exchanges 

between the experts confirmed that McClave “practiced a generally accepted method for 

determining antitrust impact,” and that “his work is sound and reliable, and consistent with 

established econometric methods.” Capacitors, 2018 WL 5980139, at *6. The proceeding as a 

whole demonstrated that McClave’s analysis and proposed testimony are sufficiently reliable and 

relevant to satisfy the Daubert standard. While he had plenty of (at times passionate) 

disagreements with defendants’ expert, Dr. Laila Haider, they reflected legitimate differences of 

opinion and points of view in the field, all of which were within the mainstream of economic 

thought and far from junk science. Learned professionals can have strong disagreements about 

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their analyses of facts, and the strength of their disagreement does not mean that one or the other 

must be dismissed as a quack. 

Moreover, there were several areas of agreement that emerged from the experts’ 

discussion, including that “the quadratic variable approach is a standard econometric tool,” “a use 

of benchmarks to determine overcharges is a standard econometric tool,” McClave’s “aggregate 

overcharge in this case is not an assumption” and it is “a blended database number,” and “if all the 

variables are properly accounted for, a regression analysis is an accepted tool for identifying 

antitrust causation.” Dkt. No. 960 at 106:18-110:6. To the extent defendants dispute that 

McClave’s regression analysis accounted for all of the proper variables, they are free to chase that 

down on cross-examination, and in their own witness presentations.

Defendants’ objection that McClave accepted the conspiracy period from class counsel 

without “independently verifying” it is also a topic for possible cross-examination and argument at 

trial, but not exclusion from the record. It is rather odd to say that McClave did not

“independently verif[y]” the conspiracy period. If he had opined on what the conspiracy period 

properly should have been based on his own investigation and analysis, defendants undoubtedly 

would have moved to strike such an opinion as legal in nature and improper. In any event, 

McClave’s acceptance of the class period from counsel does not make his proposed testimony so 

unreliable or irrelevant as to merit the exclusion of his testimony under Daubert. 

IV. CERTAIN DEFENDANTS’ JOINT MOTION TO EXCLUDE TESTIMONY OF 

DR. HAL J. SINGER (MDL #647)

GRANTED IN PART. Singer performed a qualitative and quantitative analysis, and his 

qualitative analysis was broken out into two parts: he analyzed the qualitative evidence as based 

on “criteria recognized by antitrust agencies,” as well as on “criteria regarding cartel investigation 

recognized by economists.” The former analysis -- based on antitrust agencies’ criteria for 

evaluating when information exchanges are likely to be anticompetitive -- does not meet the 

standard of relevance and reliability under FRE 702 or Daubert, and it is excluded. Singer cites 

two sources from which he derived the “qualitative criteria recognized by antitrust agencies”: a 

document on the Federal Trade Commission’s website (“Information Exchange: Be Reasonable”), 

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and the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s “Statements of Antitrust Policy in 

Health Care.” Singer Report ¶¶ 21-22. As a trained economist, Singer does not have “scientific, 

technical, or other specialized knowledge” such that his application of these agency statements to 

the documentary evidence in this case is likely to “help the trier of fact to understand the evidence 

or to determine a fact in issue.” FRE 702(a). His opinions that are based on “criteria recognized 

by antitrust agencies as indicative of anticompetitive conduct” are not admissible.

His analysis of the qualitative evidence based on “qualitative criteria regarding cartel 

investigation recognized by economists” is not specifically challenged by defendants. That 

testimony is sufficiently reliable and relevant under Daubert, and is admissible pending adequate 

proof at trial and undoubtedly subject to vigorous cross-examination by defendants if admitted. 

For Singer’s quantitative analysis, both sides treat that as rising and falling with McClave’s 

econometric analysis. The Court sees no reason to disagree, and the Daubert challenge to Singer’s 

quantitative analysis is consequently denied for the same reasons the Daubert motion against 

McClave was denied.

V. CERTAIN DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR DECERTIFICATION OF DIRECT 

PURCHASER PLAINTIFF CLASS (MDL #992)

DENIED. Defendants moved to decertify the DPP class based on McClave’s “new and 

fatal admission” at the concurrent expert proceeding “that he cannot identify antitrust injury for 

40% of the DPP Class.” Dkt. No. 992 at 4. That is not a fair characterization of McClave’s 

statements. He said, among other things, that 40% of class members purchased during the alleged 

conspiracy period but not during the benchmark period; those class members collectively 

“account[ed] for one percent of the class revenue”; and defendants’ own expert, Dr. Johnson, 

opined that “the smallest customers were the ones that were most likely to be impacted by a 

conspiracy.” Dkt. No. 960 at 29:8-9, 30:6-10. 

Consequently, decertification is denied. This denial is, of course, without prejudice to 

revisiting the scope and certification of the class for other reasons. See Patel v. Facebook, Inc., 

932 F.3d 1264, 1276 (9th Cir. 2019) (“if future decisions or circumstances” warrant, the “district 

court can decertify the class”) (quoting Officers for Justice v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 688 F.2d 615, 

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633 (9th Cir.1982), for proposition that a “district court’s order respecting class status is not final 

or irrevocable, but rather, it is inherently tentative.”); see also FRCP 23(c)(1)(C) (“An order that 

grants or denies class certification may be altered or amended before final judgment.”).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: February 21, 2020

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

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