by Chuck Sharman

On June 11, 2025, Securus Technologies was denied a motion to dismiss claims filed against the prison telecom giant and its JPay subsidiary, alleging they colluded with competitor Global*Tel Link (GTL), now known as ViaPath Technologies, to fix prices on single-call services sold to families and friends of prisoners held in lockups that contracted with the firms, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1964. The decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland came in a suit brought on behalf of prisoner’s loved ones by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News.

As PLN reported, the case was filed by HRDC in June 2020, accusing Securus and GTL of conspiring to fix prices on single prison phone calls, after 3CI—the payment processor both shared—was purchased by Securus. Following a trip to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, both antitrust and RICO claims survived against all three firms on behalf of a putative class of plaintiffs that included 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. Also by October 2024, 3CI and GTL had settled claims against them for $4.3 million and $17 million, respectively, leaving only those against Securus and current owner Platinum Equity, as well as former owner Abry Partners. [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.38.]

Securus then moved to compel the individual Plaintiffs to take their claims to arbitration, as specified in the “user agreement” that they accepted when creating an account with the firm. On April 1, 2025, the district court agreed that Securus had an enforceable arbitration agreement with the individual named Plaintiffs, staying their claims against the firm until that process was completed. The firm’s current and former owners, Platinum Equity and Abry Partners, were not found to have an enforceable arbitration agreement, however, and their motion to compel was denied. See: Albert v. Glob. Tel*Link Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61741 (D. Md.).

The two private equity firms then joined Securus in moving to dismiss the claims of the putative Plaintiff class. Securus called into question the sufficiency of the claims, while Platinum Equity and Abry Partners argued that they were filed outside the four-year statute of limitations. In its ruling, the district court denied Securus’ motion, calling the Plaintiffs’ price-fixing claims more than sufficient. However, the motions by Platinum Equity and Abry Partners were granted, since it was found that Plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient facts to support their allegation that the two owners engaged in the concealment, so the claims against them were time-barred.

The Court’s Rationale

Claims under the Sherman Antitrust Act carry a four-year statute of limitations, the district court noted. So do those under RICO. There is an exception when the violation began outside the four-year window but continued into it. Another exception exists when the Defendants have actively concealed their activity, so the limitations period doesn’t begin to toll until it is discoverable by Plaintiffs. It was the latter of these two exceptions that Plaintiffs sought for their claims against the two owners, arguing that the very nature of the price-fixing violations was secretive, so it was only when the full extent was discovered that the statute of limitations should begin to toll.

The district court took a stricter view of the pleading requirements, saying that Plaintiffs had failed to “allege facts to show fraudulent concealment with particularity,” including “the time, place, and contents of the false representations, as well as the identity of the person making the misrepresentation and what he obtained thereby,” lifting that quote from Harrison v. Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776 (4th Cir. 1999). For failing to connect the dots between Securus’ misrepresentations and its corporate owners, the district court refused to grant Plaintiffs any exception to the statute of limitations for claims against the latter.

For Securus, as the district court noted, the “crucial question” under the Sherman Antitrust Act “is whether the challenged anticompetitive conduct stems from independent decision or from an agreement, tacit or express,” quoting the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). But SCOTUS also held in Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, 547 U.S. 1 (2006), that “[p]rice-fixing agreements between two or more competitors, otherwise known as horizontal price-fixing agreements … are per se unlawful.”

To prove a horizontal price-fixing conspiracy, the district court referred to its own test, which requires a plaintiff to demonstrate: “(1) the existence of an agreement, combination, or conspiracy, (2) among actual competitors, (3) with the purpose or effect of raising, depressing, fixing, pegging, or stabilizing the price of a commodity, (4) in interstate or foreign commerce.” A similar test for RICO claims by the Fourth Circuit looks for “1) conduct [causing injury to business or property] 2) of an enterprise 3) through a pattern 4) of racketeering activity,” as laid out in Morley v. Cohen, 888 F.2d 1006 (4th Cir. 1989).

Securus argued that even if true, Plaintiffs’ claims didn’t rise to the level of antitrust activity. But the district court said that Plaintiffs’ pleadings were sufficient to allege what the Sherman Antitrust Act requires: “a primarily horizontal relationship between Securus and GTL.” Also rejected was Securus’ argument that the allegations were insufficiently specific to sustain a RICO claim; the amended complaint, the district court noted, “describes four different types of fraudulent misrepresentations made by Securus (and GTL); (2) provides the time period during which the misrepresentations were allegedly made; and (3) even provides quotes from former Securus (and GTL) executives regarding the alleged conspiracy.”

The district court also denied a Securus motion to dismiss the class allegations, since Plaintiffs had yet to move for class certification and the court had therefore not yet had opportunity to evaluate the sufficiency of those claims. The case remains open pending resolution of arbitration, and PLN will continue to update developments as they are available. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys with Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLC in New York City and Washington, D.C.; Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colo.; Justice Catalyst Law in New York City; and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C. See: Albert v. Glob. Tel*Link Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61741 (D. Md.).  

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