Jenner & Block LLP issued the following announcement on Aug. 27.
The firm won a victory on behalf of Comcast when an Illinois federal judge ruled against a several hundred million dollar antitrust lawsuit brought against the cable giant by Viamedia Inc., a company that represents small cable companies in advertisement buys. Viamedia alleged that Comcast unfairly limited access to its advertising platform to users that went through Comcast’s own advertising representatives – a process called “tying.” In a 50-plus page opinion, the court determined that Comcast’s conduct did not amount to tying or exclusive dealing. In particular, Judge Amy St. Eve held that there was no evidence that Comcast ever conditioned interconnect access on a cable-company customer buying Comcast’s ad rep services exclusively. Rather, the evidence showed that cable companies purchased ad rep services from Comcast rather than Viamedia simply because they preferred the “one stop shopping” that Comcast offered and Viamedia could not. The court also determined that, even if Comcast’s conduct was anticompetitive, Viamedia’s claims would still fail because Viamedia’s fact and expert witnesses all traced Viamedia’s claimed injury to Comcast’s lawful refusal to deal, not the tying or exclusive dealing. Accordingly, the court held that Viamedia could not establish causation or antitrust injury. In connection with that ruling, the Court further held that Viamedia’s liability and damages experts’ opinions were not admissible under Daubert.
The underlying antitrust and tort claims were originally filed in May 2016. Viamedia alleged that Comcast had wrongfully monopolized and denied access to what’s known as ‘interconnects,’ a type of technology that allows advertisers to purchase time and run ads on all cable, satellite and other providers within specific market areas at the same time. Viamedia claimed that Comcast had acquired control of the interconnects in 15 of the 25 biggest market areas in the United States and then wrongfully required advertisers interested in purchasing ad time in those areas to go through Comcast’s own advertising representative, Comcast Spotlight. As a result, according to Viamedia, its representation business lost significant customers, putting Viamedia’s entire business platform at risk of failure.
The firm team representing Comcast includes Partners Ross B. Bricker, Daniel T. Fenske and Sally K. Sears Coder and Associates James Dawson and Nathaniel K.S. Wackman.
Original source can be found here.