Class Certification

Class Certification

In various litigation matters, including securities, antitrust, and ERISA cases, Compass Lexecon is retained by plaintiffs or defendants to evaluate economic evidence pertaining to class certification matters.

In direct and indirect purchaser antitrust class certification matters, our experts analyze large and complex datasets built from transaction-level company records to examine whether common evidence can be used to establish class-wide impact:

  • Compass Lexecon experts employ rigorous empirical analyses relating to the theory of harm and market realities that affect the business or competitive interactions between plaintiff(s) and defendant(s).
  • We perform intensive data manipulation and econometric modeling to identify and highlight the case-specific issues most relevant to determining whether a class should or should not be certified, including the development of testable implications of common impact and evaluation of predominance of common factors.
  • Compass Lexecon commonly assesses whether material differences across members of a proposed class require individualized analysis of class members’ putative antitrust injury, as well as the feasibility of computing damages for each class member.

In the securities area, Compass Lexecon is retained to analyze subjects including:

  • Market efficiency in connection with claims of fraud-on-the-market
  • Loss causation
  • Class conflicts
  • The ability to utilize a single model to reliably estimate individual class member damages

In ERISA class action litigation, Compass Lexecon originated the concept of analyzing data on participant holdings and transactions in company stock funds to evaluate potential conflicts between class members.