A Blank Rome team secured another significant victory for Shepler’s Inc. and Mackinac Island Ferry Company (the “Ferry Companies”) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan when Judge Robert T. Jonker granted the Ferry Companies’ motion to dismiss antitrust claims filed by the City of Mackinac Island (the “City”) and denied the City’s motion to join the Ferry Companies’ owner, the Hoffman Family of Companies (“Hoffmann”), as a party to the case.
The Ferry Companies successfully secured dismissal of the City’s antitrust claims under federal and Michigan state law. Judge Jonker’s opinion found that the City did not have standing to assert antitrust claims against either the Ferry Companies or Hoffmann and that “Hoffman’s acquisitions alone do not amount to anticompetitive conduct.” Judge Jonker also held that, even if the City had standing, the antitrust claims failed on the merits, finding:
- The “ferry transportation to Mackinac Island is, and has been, a competitive industry with high consumer demand. Thus, the claim that the Ferry-Companies are or have been charging allegedly monopolistic prices, alone, is not enough to show predatory, anticompetitive conduct.”
- The Ferry Companies’ two-dollar fare increases were “not enough to create a plausible inference of general intent by Hoffman or the Ferry-Companies to exercise its alleged monopoly power to control prices.”
- “[T]he City has not adequately alleged that either Hoffman or the Ferry-Companies took anticompetitiveactions after the acquisitions.”
Blank Rome and Michigan counsel at Dykema continue to represent the ferry companies with regard to the parties’ contractual rights.
The Blank Rome team was led by William J. Dorsey and Jeremy A. Rist, with support from Deborah A. Skakel, Eric S. Tower, Gregory P. Cronin, and Paige F. Wahoff. Michigan counsel includes Mark J. Magyar and Richard J. Aaron from Dykema.
