n October 31, 2024, preliminary approval was granted to a settlement reached with the second of three prison telecom giants accused of illegal price-fixing. The suit was filed in June 2020 in United States District Court for the District of Maryland by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News (CLN).

The class-action complaint lodged claims under the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1964, against ViaPath Technologies, formerly called Global Tel*Link (GTL), and Securus Technologies, parent of JPay, as well as 3Cinteractive Corp. (3Ci), which handled billing, marketing and processing services for the other two Defendants.

The suit focused on single-call services for which the companies charged prisoners and their families approximately a dollar a minute for one-time collect calls from prisons and jails. Securus began offering its flat rate, single-call “Pay Now” service in 2010, charging $14.99 for a 15-minute call, as well as a “Text2Connect” service that cost $9.99 for a 10-minute call. GTL then started its own single call services, “Collect2Phone” and “Collect2Card”—both of which were offered at lower rates.

3Ci provided processing and billing for single-call services; when Securus bought 3Ci’s patented technology, it required GTL to increase its prices to match those that Securus charged in order to continue using that technology for its single-call service. As a result of this price-fixing, consumers, including prisoners and their families, were forced to pay higher rates.

Securus and GTL justified the high cost of their single-call services by falsely telling  corrections agencies that they contracted with, as well as prisoners, detainees, and families, that much of the flat-rate fees went to 3Ci for processing expenses. As a result, all three companies were accused of conspiring to fix prices for single-call services in prisons and jails.

As PLN reported, the district court found the complaint stated a valid antitrust claim against GTL and Securus but dismissed the civil RICO claim, as well as claims against 3Ci; however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed dismissal of the RICO allegations, and it reversed the lower court’s dismissal of 3Ci from the case, also denying a motion for rehearing before the full Fourth Circuit en banc. [See: PLN, Feb. 2022, p.21; and May 2024, p.32].

Following remand, both GTL/ViaPath and 3Ci opted to settle the claims against them for $17 million and $4.3 million respectively. The district court granted conditional approval for both settlements during separate fairness hearings in October 2024, when it also granted class certification, finding the complaint met the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a), (b) and (e)(2).

The class consists of anyone who paid for a call from a prison or jail and used a single-call service provided by GTL or Securus from January 1, 2010 to October 31, 2024. With thousands of potentially injured prisoners, detainees and their families, the claims met the requirements for numerosity necessary for a class-action. The requirement for commonality of their injury was also met. Specifically, the court found a “key allegation in the complaint is that the defendants illegally conspired to fix and charge inflated prices for single calls,” and the class members’ claims all involved “the same antitrust violations by defendants.”

Plaintiffs also successfully overcame hurdles to prove the typicality of proposed class representatives; the predominance of class-wide issues over potential individual claims; the adequacy of representation provided by proposed class counsel; and also the superiority of resolving the claims with a class-action. The settlement agreements were also found to be fair, adequate and a reasonable compromise that would avoid the need for additional litigation.

Attorney fees and costs, and service awards for the four named plaintiffs in the case, will be determined after final approval of the settlement agreements, and they will be paid from the settlement fund. The case remains pending; notice to the class members was deferred pending identification of their names and contact information.

The settlements with GTL and 3Ci did not resolve claims against Securus, which is trying to compel arbitration in the case. PLN will continue to update developments in the case. Class members are represented by HRDC and attorneys with Justice Catalyst Law, Inc. in New York City; the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C.; and Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, also in Washington, D.C. See: Albert v. Global Tel*Link Corp., USDC (D. Md.), Case No. 8:20-cv-01936.  

Additional source: Law360

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