Document
- Title: Class Action Complaint
- Case: Charles Buist, Cheyenne Hunt, Christine Bullock, and Nick Spetsas v. Anthropic, PBC; OpenAI OpCo, LLC; SpaceXAI LLC; and Google LLC
- Court: U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division
- Case No.: 3:26-cv-10693
- Document: 1, filed 18 September 2026, 29 pages
- Demand: Jury trial
- Primary URL: RECAP PDF
Parties
Plaintiffs (named): Charles Buist (FL); Cheyenne Hunt (CA); Christine Bullock (CA); Nick Spetsas (FL). Each alleges paid consumer subscriptions during the class period.
Defendants: Anthropic, PBC; OpenAI OpCo, LLC; SpaceXAI LLC; Google LLC.
Counsel (as captioned): Trial Lawyers for Justice (Rowley, Tutt, Jones, Norman).
Claim excerpted
Single claim for relief: Violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, against all defendants (¶¶135-147 area).
Core allegation (paraphrase of ¶¶1, 137-140): beginning no later than 12 September 2026 (and on information and belief earlier), defendants entered a contract, combination, or conspiracy to restrain the pace at which they develop and improve competing frontier-AI products. Manifestation pleaded through Amodei's We Must Pace the Frontier proposal; Musk, Altman, and Hassabis public assent on 12 September; Anthropic-OpenAI-Google working-group meetings since July; Altman's 14 September "slower than it otherwise could be" statement; and policy-chief confirmation of collaboration.
Legal characterizations pleaded in the alternative: naked horizontal restraint unlawful per se; quick-look; rule of reason.
Class excerpted
Nationwide Class (¶123): All persons in the United States who, from 12 September 2026 through the date effects cease, purchased directly from one or more Defendants a paid individual consumer subscription providing premium access to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or Gemini.
Subclass mirrors per defendant. Plaintiffs reserve moving the start date earlier after discovery.
Relief excerpted
Prayer (WHEREFORE):
- Class certification and appointment of class counsel
- Decree of Section 1 violation
- Damages trebled under Clayton Act § 4
- Preliminary and permanent injunction under Clayton Act § 16 against continuing/renewing/enforcing/implementing horizontal agreements to restrain competitive innovation
- Interest, attorneys' fees, costs, further relief
Injunction targets listed at ¶150 include agreed limits on development rate, compute/training runs under a pacing arrangement, agreed limits on AI-developing-AI, coordinated release delays, capability checkpoints used as horizontal restraints, and information exchange to police such restraints. ¶151 preserves unilateral safety measures, independent slowing, independent evaluators, petitioning government, and non-collusive standard-setting.
How to read this Record
A complaint states plaintiffs' allegations. Answers, dismissals, settlements, and judgments are separate documents. As of this draft, later docket events are UNKNOWN here.