Bill > HR8777

This bill, known as the Competitive Prices Act, aims to clarify and amend the law regarding the illegality of "consciously parallel pricing coordination" under the Sherman Act. The bill defines "consciously parallel pricing coordination" as a tacit agreement among competitors to raise, lower, change, maintain, or manipulate pricing for the purchase or sale of reasonably interchangeable products or services. The bill specifies the standards for pleading and proving a "contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy" under the Sherman Act, including that a complaint need not allege facts tending to exclude the possibility of independent action, and a claimant need not offer evidence tending to exclude the possibility of independent action to demonstrate a genuine dispute of material fact. The bill also rejects certain judicial decisions that have prevented meritorious price-fixing cases from advancing to trial and judgment.