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U.S. Supreme Court Denies Petition To Review $156 Million Antitrust Verdict

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition by JSW Steel (USA) Inc. to grant certiorari in a case involving a $156 million judgment arising out of an antitrust lawsuit filed by Yetter Coleman’s client, MM Steel, a start-up steel distributor.

The SCOTUS decision caps off a series of wins for our client at the trial and appellate court levels. After a six-week trial in 2014, a jury unanimously found that MM Steel had been put out of business because of a group boycott orchestrated by two of our client’s competitors and several steel mills. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt entered a $156 million judgment on the verdict that imposed joint and several liability on all defendants under federal antitrust laws.

Thereafter, the competing steel distributors settled, leaving the steel mills in an appeal to the Fifth Circuit. In 2015, the appeals court affirmed the full award of damages against one of the steel mills, JSW Steel (USA) Inc. JSW filed its petition to the high court earlier this year, asking it to consider whether the Fifth Circuit was wrong to affirm the award. The Supreme Court denied the request with no elaboration.

Our appellate briefing to the Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit was led by Reagan Simpson, Rich Farrer and Christian Ward, along with our co-counsel, Mo Taherzadeh.