Earlier this month, the Supreme Court posted its March 2015 oral argument calendar. On March 3, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. in San Francisco, the Court will hear argument in In re Cipro Cases I & II, No. S198616.
This case mainly raises some very interesting questions of antitrust law. The litigation also involves a UCL claim, however, so it is possible the Supreme Court may address the UCL in its forthcoming opinion. I filed an amicus brief for CAOC discussing one aspect of the UCL claim that the parties' briefing did not focus on.
My original post on the Court of Appeal's 2011 opinion is here. In that opinion, the Court of Appeal reasoned that conduct not prohibited by the Cartwright Act could not be "unfair" within the meaning of the UCL. I believe this reasoning is inconsistent with Cel-Tech, for reasons explained in detail in my amicus brief for CAOC.
More discussion of Cipro appears in this blog post. I first noted this issue more than nine years ago. (!)
I hope to be able to attend the argument on March 3 and see if the Court asks any questions about the UCL claim. I have not yet attended any arguments with the two new justices presiding, so I'm looking forward to it.
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