US: Walmart settlement on Netflix antitrust upheld

The 9th Circuit on Friday upheld Walmart’s offer to settle an antitrust class action by paying Netflix DVD subscribers $27.2 million.

The original suit, filed in 2009 by lead plaintiff Andrea Resnick, claimed that Walmart and Netflix cooperatively violated the Sherman Act in a 2005 deal in which Walmart transferred all of its online DVD-rental subscribers to Netflix.

Walmart took a 10 percent revenue share for the transfers, while Netflix agreed to promote Walmart’s DVD sales, the class alleged.

Netflix struck the deal to expand its primary business, a DVD-rental mail service, into the online-streaming arena.

The $27.2 million settlement consisted of a cash component and a gift card component, and it required class members to claim their awards. Members who thought the sum too small once divided among all, sent their case to appeals.

But the appellate panel said that the comparative awards were reasonable because the totality of the class representatives’ awards constituted only 0.17 percent of the total settlement fund.

The panel also dismissed the objectors’ complaints that the settlement violated their rights to due process, since the terms of the settlement were clearly stated in the notices emailed to class members.

Full Content: The Hollywood Reporter

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