Energy Conversion Devices Liquidation Trust v. Trina Solar Ltd.

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

Consumers benefit when market competition leads to lower prices. Competitors do not. Because antitrust law protects “competition, not competitors,” Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 320, 82 S.Ct. 1502, 8 L.Ed.2d 510 (1962), courts are leery of antitrust claims brought by competitors alleging only that their rivals lowered prices and forced them out of business.

That is the claim Energy Conversion Devices pursues. It alleges that three solar-panel producers agreed to decrease prices to below-cost levels and, by doing so, drove the company into…