Twombly: The Demise of Notice Pleading, the Triumph of Milton Handler, and the Uncertain Future of Private Antitrust Enforcement

Authors

Edward D. Cavanagh, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

The Review of Litigation

Publication Date

2008

Volume

28

First Page

1

Abstract

(Excerpt)

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly reversed the Second Circuit and held that a complaint that alleged mere parallel behavior among rival telecommunications companies, coupled with stray statements of agreement that amounted to legal conclusions, failed as a matter of law to state a claim for an antitrust conspiracy in violation of the Sherman Act. The Court ruled that in order to withstand a motion to dismiss, an antitrust conspiracy complaint must plead such factual material that, if taken as true, would suggest that the defendants have entered into an unlawful agreement. Plaintiffs need not set forth detailed factual allegations, but the Court emphasized that the grounds showing entitlement to relief must be "more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Rather, a complaint must contain "plausible grounds to infer an agreement" and allege enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegality.

Comments

Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2149661