Berman Tabacco was one of the firms leading an action on behalf of plaintiff car buyers against defendant Ford Motor Company of Canada Ltd. (“Ford Canada”) in California state court in San Francisco. The lawsuit alleged that Ford Canada and other automakers conspired to restrict the import of less expensive new cars from Canada to the United States. Absent the alleged misconduct, plaintiffs alleged that the prices for new cars in California would have cost less for consumers during the relevant period. Berman Tabacco was also Chair of the executive committee in the related federal action, In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litig., No. 03-md-1532 (D. Me.), which has ended.
On July 5, 2016, the California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s 2011 grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Ford Canada. A unanimous three-judge panel found that plaintiffs had produced evidence of the presence of an illegal agreement among the named defendants to curb Canadian exports sufficient to defeat Ford Canada’s summary judgment motion. The appellate court found that “the admissible evidence presented was sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a material fact as to whether Ford Canada participated in an illegal agreement to restrict the export of automobiles from Canada to the United States in violation of the Cartwright Act.” In re Auto. Antitrust Cases I & II, 1 Cal. App. 5th 127, 132, 204 Cal. Rptr. 3d 330, 335 (2016), review denied (Oct. 19, 2016). The appellate court remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings against defendant Ford Canada.
In June 2017, the trial court dismissed the case on res judicata grounds, and plaintiffs appealed. In September 2019, plaintiffs again prevailed on appeal when the California Court of Appeal reversed the dismissal and remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. The trial court scheduled a five-week trial to commence in February 2022.
On the eve of trial, after a long and hard-fought litigation that involved demurrers, extensive fact and expert discovery, class certification, and multiple rounds of complex summary judgment briefing, as well as two separate remands from the California Court of Appeal, a settlement was reached with Ford Canada for $82 million, bringing the total settlement in this action to $137.85 million (including three prior settlements totaling $55.85 million for class members in the federal and California actions, which have been approved). The trial court approved the $82 million settlement on October 31, 2022.