In Re Amazon.com, Inc. eBook Antitrust Litigation

Background

The plaintiffs filed the initial complaint on January 14, 2021. Related cases asserting substantially identical claims followed. The court consolidated the related actions, appointed Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP as interim lead counsel, and set a deadline for a consolidated amended complaint. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on June 2, 2021.

The Publisher Defendants—Hachette Book Group, Inc.; HarperCollins Publishers LLC; Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC; Penguin Random House LLC; and Simon & Schuster, Inc.—and Amazon.com, Inc. separately moved to dismiss the amended complaint. The plaintiffs filed a consolidated opposition. Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo held oral argument and issued a Report and Recommendation recommending dismissal of all the plaintiffs’ claims.

Review of the Recommendation

The plaintiffs objected to most of the magistrate judge’s conclusions. The district court treated the objections as sufficiently specific for de novo review, meaning it independently reviewed the challenged portions of the recommendation. After reviewing the motion papers, objections, and responses, the court rejected the objections and adopted the Report and Recommendation in full.

Ruling

The court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss without prejudice. The opinion does not restate the Report and Recommendation’s detailed analysis of the individual claims, but it adopts that analysis in full.

The court separately granted the plaintiffs leave to amend. It concluded that another amendment could not be found futile and that the plaintiffs had not yet had the opportunity to amend after receiving a ruling identifying the complaint’s deficiencies. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 30 days of the order. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions at Docket Nos. 96, 98, and 169.