Antitrust Standing after Apple v. Pepper: Application to the Sports Betting Data Market

Abstract

In Apple v. Pepper, the U.S. Supreme Court expressed a largely permissive view about whether certain potential plaintiffs have legal standing to pursue antitrust lawsuits in federal court. The Apple v. Pepper ruling provided important clarity about the scope of the so-called indirect purchaser rule set forth forty-plus years earlier in Illinois Brick. This paper first summarizes the key takeaways from the Apple v. Pepper decision released on May 13, 2019, positioning the ruling vis-à-vis other standing-related cases that have sometimes closed the courtroom doors to plaintiffs alleging anticompetitive conduct under the Sherman Act and Clayton Act. This paper then applies the lessons from Apple v. Pepper to sports betting data, an emerging tech-focused market. This paper concludes by outlining how—and why—this market will likely be subject to antitrust scrutiny soon.