Wimping out

6 October 2014 By Reynolds Holding Follow @holdingren

Motorola Mobility has been blocked from avenging price fixing abroad. It’s another case of judges limiting American law in cross-border spats. That’s sensible when U.S. interests are slight – or prosecutors overzealous. But foreign offenses causing harm at home deserve redress.

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Samsung Electronics, AU Optronics and other makers of liquid crystal displays on Oct. 3 filed a brief in Motorola Mobility’s appeal of a decision throwing out much of its antitrust case against those manufacturers.

Motorola claims the companies conspired to inflate the price of displays used in some $5 billion worth of its cellphones. A U.S. District Court ruled in February that Motorola could sue over phones that were manufactured and sold in the United States, but not over devices either assembled abroad and sold in America or assembled and sold abroad.

The company is relying on the 1982 Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act, which allows lawsuits involving foreign anti-competitive behavior that has a “direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect” on U.S. commerce.

Oral arguments in the appeal are scheduled for Nov. 13.

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