Reuters must face rival's antitrust counterclaims
Thomson Reuters could not convince a Delaware court to throw all antitrust counterclaims bought against it by rival legal research platform ROSS Intelligence.
The US District Court for the District of Delaware said that ROSS had provided enough evidence to bring a “tying” claim against Reuters.
Tying describes the practice of selling a product or service as a mandatory addition to the purchase of another.
In a memorandum handed down Tuesday, April 27, the court dismissed Reuters’ bid to drop the counterclaim that it had tied its Westlaw legal research platform to its public law database to help “maintain dominance” in the legal search market.
Reuters had originally accused ROSS of willfully infringing copyrights related to Westlaw. Specifically, it claimed that ROSS “illicitly and surreptitiously” used a Westlaw licensee to acquire access to its content in order to “rush out” a competing product.
As a result, Reuters alleged that it was put in the “unfair position” of having to compete with a product that it “unknowingly helped create”, and could be accessed for a “tiny fraction” of the cost.
Reuters sought a jury trial, a finding that ROSS’ infringement was willful, a verdict that ROSS was guilty of tortious interference with contract, and relief in the form of damages.
Ross launched counterclaims against Reuters, alleging violations of the Sherman Act and unfair competition laws of both California and Delaware.
Specifically, ROSS claimed that the lawsuit was filed in order to “maintain their monopoly and restrain trade” in the market for legal search platforms, of which Westlaw has a more than 80% market share. Reuters moved to dismiss the antitrust and unfair competition counterclaims.
In the memorandum published on Tuesday, the court granted in part and denied in part Reuter's motion to dismiss.
The court denied Reuter's motion to dismiss ROSS’ claim that Reuters had illegally “tied” its legal search tool to its public law database and therefore violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act—which makes it unlawful to attempt to monopolise “any part of the trade or commerce”.
It also denied Reuter’s bid to dismiss ROSS’ tying claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act—which prohibits agreements between parties that unreasonably restrain trade.
However, the court agreed to dismiss ROSS’ claims that Reuters had engaged in “sham litigation” and attempted to “weaponise” the litigation process for anticompetitive purposes.
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