A split en banc panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated a $295 million class action settlement in an antitrust case against diamond wholesaler De Beers after an initial panel of the court found the two nationwide classes involved in the settlement were improperly certified.
The court ruled the predominance requirement of class certification was not deficient simply because some of the class members’ state antitrust claims were not recoverable in their jurisdictions. The standard to meet predominance is not as high, the court said, when dealing with certifying a class for purposes of settlement.
