The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently dismissed an antitrust class action brought by yacht sellers against yacht brokers, brokerage trade associations, and multiple listing services for preowned yachts. In Ya Mon Expeditions LLC v. International Yacht Brokers Association Inc., 1:24-cv-20805, the yacht sellers alleged that yacht brokers conspired through trade associations to fix uniform brokerage commissions on preowned yacht sales and exclude from yacht listing services sellers who were not represented by licensed brokers.
The district court dismissed these claims. As to their price-fixing claim, the court held that the sellers had not alleged direct or circumstantial evidence sufficient to infer an unlawful agreement to inflate brokerage commissions. The sellers posited a theory that the yacht brokers belonged to trade associations that promulgated anticompetitive rules that required payment of brokerage commissions for preowned yacht sales. However, as the court explained, the sellers did not allege that the trade associations imposed any “binding” rules on yacht sales; they only pleaded various nonbinding “suggestions, general practices, and industry ‘norms’” suggested by the trade associations. The court declined to infer a commission-fixing conspiracy from those allegations because “antitrust law allows trade associations to make nonbinding recommendations about businesses and products.” See Evergreen Partnering Grp., Inc. v. Pactiv Corp., 832 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2016).
The court also dismissed the claim that the defendants collectively boycotted unrepresented yacht sellers on yacht listing services. As an initial matter, the court held that the sellers’ concerted-refusal-to-deal claim failed for the same reason as their price-fixing claim: nonbinding recommendations from trade associations were not sufficient evidence of an unlawful agreement to boycott unrepresented yacht sellers. Additionally, the court held that the sellers’ claim did not meet the standard for per se antitrust liability. The court noted that the brokers’ alleged boycott did not target a “particular customer or customers,” but rather applied to an amorphous “class of individuals, specifically unrepresented used yacht sellers.” Without more precise targeting, the court declined to infer that the brokers’ conduct “amounted to anything more than their unilateral and reasonable decision to conduct business with licensed professionals,” rather than unrepresented sellers “who may be unexperienced or unfamiliar with the process of selling a used yacht.”
The Ya Mon case shows how trade associations involving competitors can attract interest from private litigants and highlights that trade associations should proceed cautiously when considering issuing guidance, standards, or best practices for their industry.