The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rules that a foreign anticompetitive conduct may be subject to US antitrust laws (Minn-Chem / Agrium)

Yesterday, the influential Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, held that foreign anticompetitive conduct can be regulated by U.S. antitrust law if it has “a reasonably proximate causal nexus” with an injury to a U.S. purchaser. The Seventh Circuit explicitly rejected the more strenuous test applied by the Ninth Circuit, which requires that U.S. injury “follow as an immediate consequence” of foreign anticompetitive conduct in order to be actionable. The Seventh Circuit’s more lenient standard could allow more U.S. purchasers to pursue domestic antitrust claims against foreign sellers who engage in anticompetitive conduct in foreign markets. The case is Minn-Chem, Inc. v. Agrium Inc., No. 10-1712 (June 27, 2012). Judge Wood authored the decision for a unanimous en