NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Plaintiffs lawyers are trying to make sure they lead any antitrust litigation against food delivery services like Grubhub.
The firms Frank LLP and Roche Cyrulnik Freedman on July 17 asked a New York federal judge to appoint them as interim class counsel, as the two have already filed separate lawsuits against Grubhub, Doordash, Postmates and Uber Eats.
The lawsuits are proposed class actions and allege the defendants have exploited their positions in the market for delivery and takeout.
Should there be any related cases filed later, Frank and RCF want to make sure they will be in charge. They’ve also asked their two cases be consolidated.
“Counsel’s vigorous prosecution of the case to date demonstrates that the proposed Class will be represented by a highly capable and dedicated team of litigators,” their motion says.
Frank LLP filed the first case in April. RCF filed its on July 6. Restaurants have to use the defendants’ services, the suits say, because of their increasing popularity.
Restaurants are paying “unreasonable” commissions for each order on these apps – costs that are then passed down to customers in the form of higher prices, the suits say.
“In a freely competitive market, the restaurants would effectively offset these increased costs by having them paid by those consumers who choose the convenience of Defendants’ platforms,” the RCF complaint says.
“That is, absent restrictions, these restaurants would offer their customers different prices depending on whether they used Defendants’ platforms or placed orders directly through the restaurant.”