Plaintiff States sought damages and injunctive relief, alleging that Nine West conspired with unnamed dealers to set the minimum resale price at which retailers
were permitted to sell women’s dress shoes to consumers. The penalty for non-compliance in some cases was threats to cancel orders and/or refusal to take future orders for products which were subject to the policies. Allegedly, these tactics were used to coerce compliance. Any deviation by dealers from the minimum resale price was reported to Nine West’s wholesale division. In some instances, Nine West’s sales representatives would solicit and obtain agreements from dealers to raise the selling price of Nine West products in order to comply with Nine West’s pricing policy, thus establishing a conspiracy. As part of the settlement, Nine West was enjoined for 5 years from attempting to fix, lower, raise, maintain or stabilize the retail prices for which Nine West products were sold. Additionally, Nine West paid $34 million. Of the total, $31 million was distributed cy pres based on each state’s population to women’s programs and approximately $3 million was used to pay for notice costs, attorneys fees, and other expenses.