## Facts

- Foreign corporate purchasers bought vitamin products outside the United States for resale and use outside the United States.
- Vitamin manufacturers allegedly participated in a worldwide conspiracy to fix vitamin prices across global markets, including the United States and foreign countries.
- Plaintiffs alleged they paid supracompetitive prices abroad as a result of the global price-fixing scheme.
- The Sherman Act claims depended on the FTAIA’s domestic-effects exception, which applies only if (1) conduct has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable U.S. effect, and (2) that U.S. effect “gives rise to” the plaintiff’s claim.
- The district court dismissed the foreign purchasers’ claims under the FTAIA; after an initial appellate reversal, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded, holding that independent foreign injuries fall outside the exception.
- On remand, plaintiffs argued that U.S. price effects were linked to foreign overcharges because global vitamin prices were interdependent and U.S. price increases helped sustain higher prices abroad.

## Issues

1. Whether the FTAIA permits Sherman Act claims by foreign purchasers for injuries from foreign transactions when the alleged U.S. domestic effect is not the proximate cause of those foreign injuries.
2. Whether allegations of “global price interdependence” establish that the cartel’s U.S. domestic effect “gives rise to” foreign purchasers’ claims within the meaning of the FTAIA.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed dismissal of the foreign purchasers’ Sherman Act claims.
- The court held that, after the Supreme Court’s construction of the FTAIA, the domestic effect must proximately cause the plaintiff’s injury; a mere “but-for” relationship is insufficient.
- Plaintiffs failed to allege a proximate causal link between any U.S. domestic effect and the overcharges paid on foreign purchases.
- The alleged foreign injuries were independent of U.S. effects because the global cartel could have caused the same foreign overcharges even absent U.S. commerce.
- Concerns about international comity supported a narrow reading that avoids turning U.S. courts into a forum for damages claims based on foreign market injuries.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FTAIA, the Sherman Act generally does not reach non-import foreign commerce unless the conduct has a qualifying U.S. effect and that effect “gives rise to” the plaintiff’s claim.
- “Gives rise to” requires a proximate-cause relationship between the domestic effect and the plaintiff’s injury, not merely factual causation.
- Foreign purchasers cannot recover under U.S. antitrust law for injuries from foreign transactions when those injuries are independent of the conduct’s domestic U.S. effects.
- Statutory interpretation of the FTAIA’s exception should account for comity concerns and avoid unreasonable interference with other nations’ competition-law regimes.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that foreign purchasers injured by foreign vitamin transactions could not invoke the FTAIA’s domestic-effects exception because they did not plausibly allege that the cartel’s U.S. domestic effects proximately caused their foreign overcharges, leaving their claims outside the Sherman Act’s reach.


Empagran S.A. v. F. Hoffmann-LaRoche, Ltd., 417 F.3d 1267 (D.C. Cir. 2005)