On March 11, 2025, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a shipping company’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing an antitrust case brought by the only other company that carries cargo from the U.S. mainland to Guam. See Am. President Lines, LLC v. Matson, Inc., 2025 WL 870383 (D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2025) (public memorandum opinion). Although plaintiff American President Lines (“APL”) offered enough evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to defendant Matson Navigation Company Inc.’s (“Matson”) monopoly power, this only got APL “halfway to port.” Id. at *8. Because APL failed to produce sufficient evidence for a jury to infer that Matson engaged in exclusionary conduct, the court granted summary judgment to Matson and denied APL’s cross-motion. APL appealed in April, and the parties filed their preliminary papers in mid-May.
In the district court action, APL claimed that Matson “abuse[d] its dominant position in the U.S.-Guam shipping market,” “through an array of anticompetitive conduct, including disparaging APL to customers; threatening retaliation against customers who ship with APL; unfairly locking in its Guam customers through exclusionary loyalty programs and long-term contracts; offering APL capacity on its Guam-based vessels in order to force APL out of the market; and refusing to provide services to APL in Alaska, where both companies also operate.” Id. at *1.
Judge Cooper analyzed each form of allegedly exclusionary conduct separately, as he concluded he was required to do by D.C. Circuit precedent, including United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (en banc). Under this approach, if none of Matson’s acts was exclusionary on its own, then Matson would be entitled to summary judgment. Matson, 2025 WL 870383, at *10 (citing Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v. linkLine Commc'ns, Inc., 555 U.S. 438, 457 (2009) (“Two wrong claims do not make one that is right.”)).
Judge Cooper described APL’s effort to claim anticompetitive conduct as a “blunderbuss approach.” Id. at *11. At oral argument, the court asked APL’s counsel for its best evidence. Counsel identified two things: (1) deposition testimony that Matson had threatened to retaliate against Home Depot, a key shipping customer, if it shipped with APL to Guam and (2) Matson’s allegedly retaliatory actions against APL in Alaska. Id.
The court found that the testimony about threatening Home Depot—which came from APL employees who relayed statements from a now-deceased Home Depot executive—“consist[ed] exclusively of inadmissible hearsay that APL has not shown can be converted into admissible evidence.” Id. at *14. In its reply brief, APL argued that the statements were not hearsay because they are being offered for their effect on the listener or, in the alternative, fall under the state of mind or residual exceptions. Id. at *12.
Judge Cooper rejected each of these arguments. “First, APL’s effect-on-the-listener argument is dead in the water.” Id. APL needed to prove that, in fact, Matson made threats to Home Depot. If APL were offering the threats purely for their effect on the listener and not for the truth of the matter asserted, then APL had no evidence that Matson made the threats. Second, although these statements could be admissible under Rule 803(3)—the state of mind exception—to prove that customers were generally afraid to do business with APL, they could not be admitted under this exception to prove that the event causing the state of mind actually occurred. That is, they could not “prove what Matson said or did to Home Depot, or even that it said or did anything at all.” Id. at *12.
Third, the court held that the Rule 807 residual exception was unavailing to APL. There was no other non-hearsay evidence in the record corroborating that Matson employees threatened Home Depot. Moreover, APL failed to (1) show that it was prevented from discovering admissible evidence of Matson’s threats against Home Depot—indeed, it did not subpoena Home Depot or disclose any potential Home Depot witness—or (2) give reasonable notice to Matson of its intent to offer these statements. Id. at *13-14. Judge Cooper rejected similar alleged evidence as to other customers as inadmissible hearsay, time-barred, or insufficient to show Matson’s conduct was anticompetitive. Id. at *14-16.
“APL’s other ‘best evidence’ of anti-competitive conduct—Matson’s actions in Alaska—also stall[ed] short of the harbor.” Id. at *16. APL alleged that, after it entered the Guam market, Matson retaliated against APL’s Alaska operations by, for example, terminating agreements under which Matson would transport cargo from locations in Alaska to APL’s ships, ending APL’s shop and office leases, and ceasing to share spare parts and a tugboat. Id. at *16. Judge Cooper ruled that APL did not show that Matson’s actions in Alaska harmed competition in the U.S.-Guam market or that Matson’s Alaska conduct was anticompetitive.
The court noted “the general rule that competitors are not obligated to do business with their rivals.” Id. at *18. “Unfortunately for APL, the Supreme Court has recognized just one exception to this rule—and it does not apply here.” Id. In Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp., the defendant owned three of four ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado and plaintiff owned the fourth. 472 U.S. 585 (1985). For decades, the companies jointly offered customers an all-access pass to all four resorts, but defendant ended this arrangement and made a full effort to block plaintiff from recreating the pass. The Supreme Court allowed plaintiff’s monopolization claim to proceed where a jury could find the defendant “was not motivated by efficiency concerns and . . . was [instead] willing to sacrifice short-run benefits and consumer goodwill in exchange for a perceived long-run impact on its smaller rival.” Id. (citing Aspen Skiing, 472 U.S. at 610-11).
Judge Cooper held that APL was “high and dry” when it came to the “demanding” requirement to establish that Matson’s refusal to deal was irrational but for its anticompetitive effect. Id. at *19 (internal quotation marks omitted). Matson executives testified that the company refused to deal for pro-competitive reasons. That is, Matson terminated or declined to renew agreements with APL because it intended to launch a competing shipping service and needed the facilities it had previously leased to APL for its own purposes. Id. Matson launched that service in 2020. Id. In a similar vein, an executive testified that Matson ended the tug-sharing arrangement based on an incident in which APL’s tug was not available to help Matson dock a ship, which created safety issues. Id. APL argued that “Matson produced no contemporaneous evidence documenting the justifications offered in discovery.” Id. The court held that, “[t]hat may be so, but it does not change the fact that there is no evidence in the record contradicting Matson’s justifications.” Id.
The court was also not persuaded by APL’s other allegations. APL accused Matson of unfairly telling customers that APL depends on certain subsidies to compete in the Guam market and that APL would soon be leaving this market following the end of the subsidies. Id. Yet, this “attack sails off course in several respects,” including that “much of the evidence supporting these allegations runs into a familiar obstacle: the hearsay rule.” Id. at *19-20. Moreover, “firms routinely compete on the merits by criticizing their customers” and “APL has itself repeatedly acknowledged that it needs [the subsidies] to keep serving Guam.” Id. at *20-21. Therefore, “Matson was well within safe harbors.” Id. at *21.
The court also found that APL failed to show Matson’s loyalty program for shippers of household goods was anticompetitive. Id. at *21-23. And it similarly failed to show that Matson’s agreements offering customers negotiated tariff rates in exchange for hitting certain volume thresholds foreclosed APL from accessing the market or caused other anticompetitive harm. Id. at *24-26. Finally, the court granted summary judgment to Matson on APL’s attempted-monopolization claim, holding that APL failed to proffer sufficient evidence that Matson engaged in predatory or anticompetitive conduct with a specific intent to monopolize. Id. at *26-28.
For now, this case serves as a reminder of the evidentiary headwinds that could leave antitrust litigants in deep water as they chart a path toward trial.
