Opinion ID: 626562
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Varied Responses to the Surcharge

Text: We also have difficulties with the district court's view that Anderson's conspiracy claim was implausible because defendants had a variety of reactions to Anderson's announcement of its Surcharge, 732 F.Supp.2d at 394, with some publishers or distributors initially entering into negotiations for alternatives to the Surcharge and suggesting alternatives that varied and other publishers and distributors not negotiating. The court stated that [c]onspirators hatching a concerted scheme to destroy Anderson would not have reacted so differently to the Surcharge, id. at 397. However, there is nothing implausible about coconspirators' starting out in disagreement as to how to deal conspiratorially with their common problem. As the court itself noted, the key parallel conduct allegation was that all of the publisher and distributor defendants ceased doing business with Anderson, id. at 398 (emphasis added). The court's reliance on the variety of defendants' original reactions failed to take into account that, notwithstanding their responses initially, some two weeks later every defendant publisher and distributor acted, within a span of three business days, to cut Anderson off.