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applEcon welcomes new affiliate expert David Neumark
applEcon is pleased to announce that Professor David Neumark has joined as an affiliated expert.
Professor Neumark serves as a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a leading researcher on labor market discrimination and has helped develop methods to tie wage measurement methods to underlying models of discrimination, in addition to his more recent work evaluating the effects of minimum wage laws. He has also served as an expert witness in numerous cases related to sex, age, and race discrimination in labor markets.
To learn more about Professor David Neumark visit https://applecon.com/team/david-neumark-phd/.
applEcon welcomes new affiliate expert Michael F. Pesko
applEcon is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael F. Pesko has joined as an affiliated expert.
Dr. Pesko is the J. Rhoads Foster Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, where he also serves as the director of the multidisciplinary Social Impact Lab. His research examines the effect of public policies on health behaviors, market outcomes, and economic decision-making. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers, which have been cited over 3,500 times, and he has previously testified in regulation and competition cases related to the tobacco and e-cigarette markets.
To learn more about Dr. Michael F. Pesko visit https://applecon.com/team/michael-f-pesko/.
applEcon welcomes new affiliate expert Darrell L. Williams
applEcon is pleased to announce that Dr. Darrell L. Williams has joined as an affiliated expert.
Dr. Williams is an antitrust economist with over 20 years of experience advising clients and agencies on competition matters across industries including technology, healthcare, petroleum, and sports. He has served as an expert in major cases involving price-fixing, exclusive dealing, and joint ventures, including In re College Athlete NIL Litigation. He previously served as a staff economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and as a financial economist at the SEC. A former UCLA faculty member, he has also lectured at the Economics Institute for Federal Judges and held leadership roles in the ABA Antitrust Section.
To learn more about Dr. Darrell L. Williams, visit https://applecon.com/team/darrell-l-williams-phd/.
applEcon welcomes new expert Nels Pearsall
applEcon is pleased to announce that Nels Pearsall has joined the firm as an expert. With more than 35 years of experience as an economic consultant and testifying expert, Mr. Pearsall offers clients proven capabilities in liability analysis, damages quantification, and asset valuation across diverse industries and legal contexts.
Mr. Pearsall brings significant expertise across a broad range of economic issues, including antitrust, intellectual property, and complex commercial disputes. His antitrust work encompasses matters involving monopolization, price discrimination, tying, predatory pricing, price fixing, collusion, and both vertical and horizontal restraints. In the intellectual property arena, he has extensive experience valuing patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, as well as analyzing economic damages in disputes involving reasonable royalties, lost profits, and price erosion. Mr. Pearsall has also advised clients on transfer pricing and intangible asset strategies. His commercial litigation work includes damage assessments related to lost wages, breach of contract, business interruption, real estate investments, fraud, changes in asset or equity value, and fiduciary claims.
To learn more about Nels Pearsall, visit https://applecon.com/team/nels-pearsall/.
applEcon welcomes new affiliate expert Evan Starr
applEcon is pleased to announce the affiliation of expert Evan Starr. Dr. Evan Starr is an Associate Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. His research examines issues related to employment contracts, employee mobility, entrepreneurship, innovation, and human capital. He is particularly interested in how the fine print in employment contracts (e.g., noncompete and nondisclosure agreements) and the policies that regulate them influence workers, firms, and markets. Dr. Starr has authored more than a dozen articles in leading journals in economics and management and testified in front of the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, and many state governments. His research has been covered in major news outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NPR, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. Dr. Starr’s prior expert consulting work includes testimony and reports related to mobility restrictions, damages, class certification, and statistical analysis. Formerly a professor at the University of Illinois, Dr. Starr received his PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan.
Court cites aE testimony, certifies class of indirect purchasers affected by alleged HDD component price fixing
On January 10, 2025, a California federal judge certified an End-User class of indirect purchasers of suspension assemblies (SAs)—a critical component in hard disk drives (HDDs)—where the HDDs were sold either as standalone products or incorporated into computers and other electronic devices.
applEcon’s Dr. Janet S. Netz provided expert economic testimony as to the class-wide impact of an alleged price-fixing scheme among manufacturers of SAs, which precisely suspend a head over a spinning disk to read or write memory on an HDD. Specifically, Dr. Netz opined on whether common methods and evidence could show that the efforts of Defendants TDK and NHK—who, plaintiffs allege, shared confidential price and market share information to raise the prices of SAs—resulted in higher prices for purchasers of electronic devices containing HDDs. She also estimated the aggregate economic impact on End-Users affected by the alleged scheme.
In her class certification reports, Dr. Netz proposed and implemented methods for modeling: (1) the alleged overcharge faced by HDD manufacturers; (2) the pass-through of that overcharge to End-Users of computers and other HDD-containing products; and (3) the total economic damages stemming from the alleged conduct. Doing so involved measuring the extent to which cost changes increased prices at the bottom of a supply chain that included, among other levels, SA and HDD manufacturers, electronics manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
The Court found that Dr. Netz’s testimony—which also withstood a Daubert challenge in December 2023—proposed a reasonable method for establishing an overcharge, pass-through, and damages across the class. Judge Maxine M. Chesney ultimately certified the End-User class alongside a separate class of resellers of HDD-containing devices.
applEcon Partner Janet S. Netz chaired the panel on Models of Damages Assessment at the Perfect Law 2024 Global Class Actions and Mass Torts Conference
Dr. Janet Netz was the chair of the panel on Models of Damages Assessment at the Perfect Law 2024 Global Class Actions and Mass Torts Conference in London, England, this past May 23-24. Dr. Netz and participants Derek Ho, Tjeerd Krol, Dr. Dante Quaglione, and Thierry Wetzel discussed the role of damages assessment in class actions; how the composition of the class impacts the assessment of damages; and how data availability guides which damages models can be implemented.
Dr. Netz spoke on the two steps to calculating damages: estimating the overcharge, which determines damages to direct purchasers, and estimating the pass-through rate, which determines damages to indirect purchasers. The overcharge is crucial to determining damages whether the goal of competition (or other) law is deterring bad acts or compensating consumers for harm done. Pass-through is crucial only for compensation.
The panel also emphasized that data availability can significantly impact the precision with which damages can be estimated. Dr. Netz explained how a rigorous analysis, as required in the U.S., can be applied to both detailed, transactional data and aggregated data, depending on what data are available.
The Global Class Actions and Mass Torts Conference is a prestigious international event that focuses on collective redress—an umbrella term for the various legal mechanisms that allow a large group of individuals who have suffered similar harm or injury to pursue their claims together. The annual conference includes the world’s leading legal and litigation experts to share insights into class actions and mass torts as these types of cases become more common in Europe and other areas outside the U.S.
Varsity agrees to pay $82.5 million and abandon many of their anticompetitive business practices related to Competitive Cheer, Cheer Apparel, and Cheer Camps
Dr. Janet S. Netz and applEcon assisted counsel representing indirect purchasers in securing a $82.5 million settlement in conjunction with an agreement with Varsity and its co-Defendants to abandon many of their anticompetitive business practices to prevent future harms. The non-monetary settlement provisions include (1) the participation in end-of-season championship competitions will no longer require previous participation at a Varsity-owned Cheer Camp; (2) Varsity will not require exclusive purchasing agreements to participate in Varsity Family Plan, Network Program, or a rebate or discount relating to Cheer Competitions; (3) Varsity will no longer require participants in 35% or more of its Cheer Competitions to stay at Varsity-approved accommodations; and (4) the U.S. All Star Federation (USASF) will not disclose confidential information regarding cheer competition schedules or attendance records to other, competing, members.
Indirect purchasers Jessica Jones and Christina Lorenzen represent parents of Competitive Cheer Athletes who allege they paid artificially inflated prices for Varsity Cheer Competitions, Varsity Cheer Apparel, and Varsity Cheer Camp Fees when Varsity and other defendants violated state and federal antitrust laws, and state unfair competition, consumer deception, and consumer protection laws. Broadly, Plaintiffs allege that Varsity engaged in an anticompetitive scheme to exclude rivals and acquire, enhance, and maintain monopoly power in the relevant markets for Cheer Competitions, Cheer Apparel, and Cheer Camps, so that it could charge supracompetitive prices for these products and services.
Competitive Cheer is a distinct sport for teams associated with private gyms and schools. Unlike traditional sideline cheerleading, Competitive Cheer teams compete head-to-head against each other in events with unique, choreographed, and highly acrobatic routines.
Dr. Janet Netz was retained on behalf of the Plaintiffs by the Joseph Saveri Law Firm. Dr. Netz testified to the relevant markets, whether or not Varsity possessed market power in the relevant markets, whether the challenged conduct allowed Varsity to acquire or maintain its monopoly power, and the anticompetitive effects of the challenged conduct.
For further information on Jessica Jones, et al., v. Varsity Brands, LLC, et al. (2:20-cv-02892-SHL-tmp (Western District of Tennessee, Western Division)):
applEcon welcomes new affiliate expert Pierre Thomas Léger
applEcon is pleased to announce the affiliation of expert Pierre Thomas Léger. Professor Léger is an economist with over 20 years of experience in applied research focusing on healthcare economics, industrial organization, labor economics, and applied econometrics. Professor Léger’s research focuses on healthcare markets with special emphasis on the impact of financial incentives on provider treatment decisions, costs, and patient outcomes. He is currently working on several projects including studies on the role of local market conditions, financial incentives, and provider culture in explaining geographic variations in healthcare utilization and spending in both Medicare and commercial insurance markets.
Read more about Professor Léger here.