Eimer Stahl attorneys represented multiple insurance companies in the Voluntary Market Premium Litigation. The Voluntary Market Premium Litigation is comprised of a series of lawsuits filed in federal and state courts, in which the plaintiffs claimed that workers’ compensation insurers had improperly passed through residual market assessments and violated filings. They sought certification of nationwide or statewide classes under federal and state antitrust laws, the RICO statute, conspiracy theories, deceptive trade practices acts, fraud theories, and contract theories. Most of these cases were filed by Milberg Weiss and a consortium of other plaintiffs’ firms. The Houston-based firm of McClanahan & Clearman filed a separate federal RICO conspiracy case. The litigation involved complex issues regarding the application of state and federal antitrust laws to the insurance industry. Issues such as the application of the McCarran-Ferguson Act and state antitrust exemptions, and the application of the filed rate doctrine were extensively briefed. Eimer Stahl attorneys coordinated the joint defense effort among 30 defendant insurance companies for several years. The defense team secured dismissals of federal and state antitrust and civil conspiracy claims in several of the cases, succeeded in defeating class certification motions in the five cases in which such motions were decided, procured the dismissal of two of the state court cases after successful summary judgment motions, and voluntary dismissal by the plaintiffs in six other state courts. The plaintiffs in the state class cases purported to seek over a billion dollars in the aggregate, while the plaintiffs in the purported nationwide RICO class action sought damages of similar magnitude. The defendants’ litigation success enabled settlement of this purported class litigation on an extraordinarily favorable basis.

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