The past year and a half witnessed important antitrust law developments for cases involving “two-sided” transaction markets, i.e., markets in which a sale on one side cannot be made without also making a sale on the other side of the market. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision in US Airways v. Sabre Holdings, No. 17-960, 2019 WL 4281729 (2d Cir. Sept. 11, 2019) (US Airways), which is the next chapter in this evolving story.

The Second Circuit overturned a $15.3 million jury verdict secured by US Airways after a nine-week trial against the travel-planning firm Sabre Holdings and remanded the case to a district court for retrial. In doing so, the Second Circuit relied on last year’s groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision Ohio v. American Express, 138 S. Ct. 2274 (2018) (Amex), in which the court held that certain products that provide transaction services, such as credit cards, must (as a matter of law) be treated as two-sided markets for defining the relevant market for antitrust purposes—which an antitrust plaintiff must do under the “rule of reason” to establish a §1 claim under the Sherman Antitrust Act—and for calculating potential damages. The Second Circuit also reinstated US Airways’ claims that Sabre was operating an illegal monopoly, despite the fact that Sabre’s product was the only brand within that purported market.

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