360 DigiTech, Inc. Securities Fraud Investigation
Investigation Deadline: December 1, 2023
June 3, 2026
News
Federal Court Certifies Class of Tens of Thousands of Alumni in Elite University Financial Aid Price Fixing Case
Berger Montague Named Class Counsel in Landmark Suit Against Cornell, Penn, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Other Elite Universities
PHILADELPHIA, PA –Berger Montague, a leading national plaintiffs’ law firm, scored a major win in Henry, et al. v. Brown University, et al. – 568 Cartel Antitrust Litigation. U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of the Northern District of Illinois has certified a class of tens of thousands of students in a major antitrust lawsuit accusing 17 elite universities of conspiring to fix the amount of financial aid awarded to students. The court appointed Berger Montague as co-class counsel in the case, alongside lead class counsel MoloLamken LLP and co-class counsel Freedman Normand Friedland LLP.
“Winning class certification is a significant milestone for tens of thousands of former students of these seventeen elite private universities, who will get their day in court before a jury in Chicago,” said Firm Chairman Eric L. Cramer, who has lead this case for his firm for more than four years. “We are confident that the jury will agree that these universities have colluded to harm the very students they claim to serve in violation of the federal antitrust laws.”
The certified class consists of students who paid tuition and received financial aid from the defendant universities, which include Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame, and Georgetown University, among others. The lawsuit, filed in early 2022, alleges that these institutions violated federal antitrust law by colluding—through a group known as the 568 Presidents Group—to limit the amount of financial aid they provided to students, resulting in students paying more than they otherwise would have paid in a competitive market.
Plaintiffs presented evidence to the Court showing that seventeen schools used a shared “methodology” (referred to by these defendants as the “Consensus Approach”) and agreed upon “principles” to calculate the financial need of the students. Plaintiffs’ economic expert, Dr. Hal Singer, computed damages to the Class amounting to $685 million using an economic model that the Court has deemed reliable.
In granting certification, Judge Kennelly rejected arguments by the defendant universities that alleged misconduct by prior class counsel warranted denial of class certification, finding that no such misconduct had prejudiced the class or created an actual conflict between counsel and the class.
To date, twelve schools—including Yale University and Duke University—have reached settlements with the class totaling nearly $320 million, allowing them to exit the litigation. Plaintiffs will take the non-settling defendants, including Cornell, Penn, Notre Dame, MIT, and Georgetown, to trial in Chicago.
Read more about this case at www.bergermontague.com/568.
Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions, and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. With more than $2.4 billion in 2025 post-trial judgments alone, the Firm is a leader in the fields of complex litigation, antitrust, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among many other practice areas. For over 55 years, Berger Montague has played leading roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $50 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago; Malvern, PA; Minneapolis; San Diego; San Francisco; Toronto, Canada; Washington, DC, and Wilmington, DE.
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