The report’s topics include the number of antitrust class action complaints filed each year, average time from filing to final approval, mean and median recoveries, attorney fees and costs awarded, and total settlement amounts each year and overall. The report analyzes law firms that represented plaintiffs and defendants in antitrust class action settlements, describing particular cases and cumulative results, and tabulating cumulative totals for claims administrators involved in the settlement process.
To accompany the report, USF and the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) released a Commentary,The Critical Role of Private Antitrust Enforcement in the United States, which identifies major implications for private enforcement in the United States. Like previous reports, the 2020 report relies largely on data for private U.S. antitrust class actions available through Lex Machina, as well as supplemental data analysis. The Report extends the dataset to the 11-year period covering 2009-2020, thus allowing for a deeper analysis of private enforcement trends and their implications. The analysis provided in the AAI-USF Commentary highlights the importance of private antitrust enforcement in the U.S. system and the particularly important role played by the antitrust class action.
USF was founded in 1912. It has a tradition of educating effective lawyers who graduate with the professional skills and theoretical foundation necessary to succeed in the legal profession. HNB's settlement team provides one of the leading settlement account programs in the country. It has handled more than 2,800 settlements for law firms, claims administrators, and regulatory agencies. These cases represent over $60 billion with more than 150 million checks.