This month, we discuss DPWN Holdings (USA) v. United Airlines,1 an antitrust case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit considered the level of scrutiny to apply, on a motion to dismiss, to allegations of lack of knowledge of a claim otherwise discharged in bankruptcy. The court examined whether DHL, an international express mail and cargo delivery service and a customer of United Airlines, had adequately shown that it was unaware of United’s alleged price-fixing activities until after United’s bankruptcy plan was confirmed, thereby overcoming United’s argument that DHL’s antitrust claim had been discharged in United’s bankruptcy.
In an opinion by Judge Jon O. Newman, joined by Judge Rosemary S. Pooler and Judge Debra Ann Livingston, the court held that the district court had applied the incorrect standard in accepting as true DHL’s allegations that it was not, and could not have been, aware of United’s alleged price-fixing conspiracy in time to present an antitrust claim in United’s bankruptcy proceeding. While the well-pleaded allegations in a plaintiffs’ complaint are presumed to be true on a motion to dismiss, the court refused to accept DHL’s claim that it had not received a meaningful opportunity to bring its antitrust claim before United’s bankruptcy plan was confirmed. The court remanded the case to the district court for further development of the facts, specifying the precise questions the district court must resolve before it could determine whether DHL would be denied due process if its antitrust claim was dismissed.
