Managing Director Hal Singer’s testimony has proved critical in the certification of a class of Invisalign direct purchasers in Simon and Simon, PC v. Align Technology, Inc. Plaintiff dental practices allege that orthodontics company Align Technology artificially inflated the price of its popular Invisalign clear aligners through a combination of anticompetitive practices. This marks the ninth time a district court has relied on an impact model from Dr. Singer in certifying a class in an antitrust matter. Five other courts have certified classes in consumer protection cases based on an impact model designed by Dr. Singer.

Dr. Singer employed two different multiple regression methodologies to empirically test Plaintiffs’ claims; a traditional “before-and-during” regression model, and a two-stage regression model designed to assess Align’s foreclosure of customers under a “raising rivals’ cost” framework. The court found that “Singer’s models thus map directly onto the two theories of liability” and that his opinions “are reliable and capable of providing class-wide answers to the questions central to the plaintiffs’ claims.”

The court simultaneously rejected Align’s criticisms of Dr. Singer’s methodologies. The court found that Dr. Singer’s first “methodology is sufficiently reliable to support a classwide showing of antitrust impact and damages” and that “Singer adequately articulated rational criteria that he used for ruling in certain [foreclosing] agreements and ruling out others” in his second methodology. The court also rejected Align’s allegations of a “Comcast” problem, finding that that Dr. Singer’s models allowed him to isolate each element of Plaintiffs’ allegations in isolation if need be.

The November 2023 class certification decision for Simon and Simon, PC v. Align Technology, Inc. can be found here. Dr. Singer was aided by Econ One Economists Augustus Urschel, Chris Sojourner, and Omer Gold.