“Two wrongs don’t make a right. Nor do they necessarily cancel each other out.”

💡 The court rejects LegitScript’s attempt to use moral arguments about drug importation to escape antitrust scrutiny.

“The purposes of the antitrust laws are best served by insuring that the private action will be an ever-present threat to deter anyone contemplating business behavior in violation of the antitrust laws.”

💡 The Supreme Court prioritizes vigorous private enforcement over moral judgments about plaintiffs.

“The plaintiff who reaps the reward of treble damages may be no less morally reprehensible than the defendant, but the law encourages his suit to further the overriding public policy in favor of competition.”

💡 Antitrust law values market competition over assessing relative fault of parties.

“LegitScript ha[d] identified no federal or state law that PharmacyChecker ha[d] violated. Nor ha[d] LegitScript pointed to any instance of a federal or state law enforcement agency prosecuting or even threatening to prosecute PharmacyChecker.”

💡 The district court found no evidence PharmacyChecker itself broke any laws, undermining LegitScript’s defense.

“The website is not a pharmacy; it does not buy, sell, distribute, dispense, or process orders for any drugs. Rather, it accredits online pharmacies across the globe for their safety standards, and it compares the prices of the drugs offered by those pharmacies.”

💡 PharmacyChecker operated as an information service, not a drug distributor.

“The SDNY Defendants worked with LegitScript to have published articles disparaging PharmacyChecker; colluded with LegitScript to have created the .pharmacy [internet] domain to serve a gatekeeping function; added PharmacyChecker.com to their Not Recommended Sites list or the like; and ran targeted online ads against PharmacyChecker.”

💡 The complaint details coordinated exclusion tactics across multiple channels.

“Defendants’ conduct allegedly prevented PharmacyChecker from competing effectively in the global markets for online pharmacy verification and comparative drug price information.”

💡 The alleged boycott targeted PharmacyChecker’s ability to operate in its core business.

“PharmacyChecker’s central objective has been to examine the qualifications (i.e., practice and safety standards) of online pharmacies wherever they might be to provide worldwide visitors with information to make good choices, to be safe, and to get medication most affordably.”

💡 The company positioned itself as serving global consumers seeking affordable and safe medication.

“Around 56% of PharmacyChecker’s total revenue in the Relevant Period was generated from clicks made by PharmacyChecker.com users inside the United States on hyperlinks for online pharmacies outside the United States.”

💡 More than half the company’s income depended on the exact consumer activity LegitScript sought to block.

“The record consists of one online pharmacy’s deposition testimony that only about 3.47% of the clicks from PharmacyChecker.com resulted in a drug transaction.”

💡 Most clicks did not lead to purchases, undercutting claims of widespread illegal importing.

“To rule otherwise would effectively frustrate the important public policy underlining the antitrust laws: encouragement of private antitrust suits in order to deter the illegal exercise of market power.”

💡 Blocking antitrust suits based on plaintiff conduct would undermine enforcement and enable monopolies.

“Memorex’s own illegal conduct did not divest it of an antitrust action. The statutory requirements for [its] suit are met. That is all that is necessary.”

💡 Ninth Circuit precedent confirms that plaintiff’s alleged wrongdoing does not eliminate antitrust standing.

“The case exposes how corporate and regulatory credibility can be co-opted to disguise anti-competitive behavior. The same systems meant to protect consumers became tools for exclusion.”

💡 Safety infrastructure was allegedly converted into a competitive weapon.

“This ruling is ultimately about who controls the public’s access to medicine. The bigger question now looms: if private profit maximizing corporations can weaponize trust labels to define legitimacy, what happens to competition and to consumers when truth itself gets gated off?”

💡 The case raises systemic concerns about private control over public health information.

“We continue to side with the goal of vigorous enforcement of our antitrust laws, the Magna Carta for the preservation of [our] economic freedom and [] free-enterprise system.”

💡 The Ninth Circuit reaffirms the foundational importance of competitive markets.