The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that a real estate developer seeking to build a Wegmans supermarket has adequate standing to bring an antitrust suit claiming the owner of a nearby Shop-Rite store engaged in sham litigation to prevent the entry of a competitor.

The appeals court reversed a U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruling dismissing the antitrust suit on the finding that the developer was not a competitor or participant in the supermarket arena and therefore did not sustain the sort of injury that antitrust laws were intended to prevent. The district court took too narrow a view of antitrust injury when considering the claim for attempted monopolization of the market for full-service supermarkets—those that provide amenities beyond traditional groceries, such as wine and liquor, as well as pharmacies and banks—the appeals court said in Hanover 3201 Realty v. Village Supermarkets.

But the Third Circuit said the district court rightly found that the developer had no standing to bring a claim for attempted monopolization of rental space because the plaintiff and defendant are not competitors in that market. The Third Circuit also found that the plaintiff can demonstrate that the defendant is not entitled to immunity under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine because its conduct falls under the sham litigation exception.