Full opinion text
OPINION & ORDER VALERIE CAPRONI, United States District Judge: These consolidated cases involve the alleged manipulation and suppression of silver prices during the period from January 1, 1999 “through the date on which the effects of Defendants’ unlawful conduct cease” (the “Class Period”). The Defendants are: Deutsche Bank, HSBC, The Bank of Nova Scotia (collectively the “Fixing Members”) and UBS AG (“UBS” and together with the Fixing Members, the “Defendants”). Plaintiffs are individuals and entities that bought or sold physical silver or silver futures, “mini” silver futures or options contracts through the Chicago Board of Trade (“CBOT”), NYSE LIFFE or Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX”) during the Class Period. Seeking to recover losses suffered as a result of Defendants’ alleged manipulation and suppression of silver prices through the silver “fixing” process, Plaintiffs bring putative class action claims for (1) price fixing, bid rigging and conspiracy in restraint of trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.-, (2) manipulation in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.-, (3) principal-agent liability in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.-, (4) aiding and abetting manipulation in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.-, (5) manipulation by false reporting, fraud and deceit in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., and CFTC Rule 180.1(a); and (6) unjust enrichment. On October 9, 2014, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred one related case from the Eastern District of New York to this Court for “coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings” with another case that had been filed in this District. In re London Silver Fixing, Ltd., Antitrust Litig., 52 F.Supp.3d 1381, 1381-2 (J.P.M.L. 2014); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1407. With the filing of eight additional “tag-along” actions, there are now ten cases comprising this consolidated multidistrict litigation. Pursuant to the Court’s Order dated October 14, 2014, formal discovery has been stayed. See Order No. 1, In re London Silver Fixing, Ltd., Antitrust Litig., 14-md-2573 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 14, 2015) (VEC), Dkt. 4. On November 25, 2014, the Court appointed Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart, P.C. and Grant & Eisenhofer P.A. as interim class co-counsel. Dkt. 17. On January 26, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a first Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint (the “FAC”), Dkt. 34, which Defendants moved to dismiss on March 27, 2015, Dkts. 56-61. On April 17, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a Second Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint (the “SAC”). Dkt. 63. Defendants have moved to dismiss the SAC through two separate motions, the first filed by UBS, Dkt. 73, and the second filed by the Fixing Members, Dkt. 75. For the following reasons, UBS’s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED, and the Fixing Members’ Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. BACKGROUND I. The Silver Fixing Since 1897, a small group of silver bullion dealers, including the Fixing Members and their predecessors, have met in London (initially in-person and later via teleconference) to set the daily benchmark price of silver. SAC ¶ 95. Throughout the Class Period until August 14, 2014, the Fixing Members, acting through London Silver Market Fixing, Ltd., met over a secure conference call line at 12:00 P.M. London time each business day to “fix” the price of physical silver (the “Silver Fixing” or the “Fixing”). Id. ¶ 96. The Silver Fixing, which usually took less than ten minutes, was conducted through a private “Walrasian” auction. Id. At the outset, the “Chairman” of the auction (a position that rotated among the Fixing Members) would announce the opening price, reflecting the current “spot price” of silver. Id. ¶¶ 96-97. Each of the Fixing Members would then declare how many bars of silver they wished to buy or sell at the opening price based on the net supply or demand for spot silver on their order books (reflecting both client orders and proprietary trading orders). Id. ¶ 97. After each Fixing Member announced its net order, the banks’ orders would be netted against one another. Id. ¶ 98. If buying and selling interest were roughly equivalent, the Silver Fixing would be declared complete and the price would be declared fixed (the “Fix Price”). Id. Otherwise, the Chairman would adjust the price upward or downward until buying and selling interest reached rough equilibrium, within 300 bars. Id. If the Chairman was unable to set a price that brought the discrepancy between buying and selling interest within 300 bars, the Chairman could unilaterally fix the price and then the Fixing Members would “divide the excess supply or demand pro-rata among themselves.” Id. ¶ 99. Once finalized, the Fix Price was published to the market. Id. No other market participants or third parties played a role in influencing the Fix Price; the Fixing Members had sole control over the auction. Id. ¶¶ 100. On April 29, 2014, Deutsche Bank left its position as a Fixing Member due to regulatory concerns, ultimately leading to the demise of the Silver Fixing and the creation of the “London Silver Price.” Id. ¶¶ 244-53. The new pricing system uses an electronic trading mechanism, instead of a private telephone call, but otherwise retains an “auction-style process” to determine the Fix Price. Id. ¶ 15. Two of the former Fixing Members, HSBC and Bank of Nova Scotia, are members of the London Silver Fixing panel; UBS is accredited to participate in the London Silver Price but has never been a member of the Fixing Panel. Id. ¶¶ 80, 253. II. The Impact of the Fix Price on the Silver Investments Plaintiffs describe the Fix Price as the global benchmark “used to price, benchmark, and/or settle billions of dollars in physical silver and silver financial instruments” on a daily basis. Id. ¶ 102. According to the London Bullion Market Association: “The guiding principal behind the [precious metal fixings] is that all business ... is conducted solely on the basis of a single published Fixing price.” Id. ¶3 (quoting A Guide to the London Precious Metals Markets, London Bullion Market Association, at 14, http://www.lbma.org.uk/ assets/markeVOTCguide20081117.pdf). Thus, while there is no single forum or exchange for trading silver and silver-related investments, silver producers, consumers, investors, and central banks rely on the Fix Price in trading approximately $30 billion in silver and silver-related financial instruments each year. Id. ¶ 102. For example, physical silver (including silver bars and coins) is often traded over-the-counter (“OTC”) with reference to the Fix Price. Id. ¶¶ 103-04. The Fix Price also has an impact on the prices of exchange-traded silver futures and options contracts, as well as silver swaps and forward agreements that are traded on an OTC basis. Id. ¶¶ 106-18. Because those instruments reflect a future obligation to buy or sell physical silver, silver “futures” contracts increase or decrease in value in direct relationship to the price of physical silver, such that “99.85% of the variation in the price of COMEX silver futures contracts between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2013 is explained by the results of the Silver Fix.” Id. ¶¶ 108, 113-14 & Fig. 1. Most market participants do not settle their futures contracts at maturation; rather they offset their positions before expiry by purchasing contracts for an equal opposite position. Id. ¶ 110. As a result, the holders of “long” positions (who are obligated to purchase silver at an agreed-upon price in the future) profit when the price goes up because they are able to sell their offsetting contracts at a higher price. Id. ¶ 111. In contrast, the holders of “short” positions (who are obligated to sell silver at an agreed-upon price in the future) profit when the price goes down because they are able to buy an offsetting contract for a lower price. Id. Silver forwards work in the same way, the key difference being that they are traded OTC as opposed to via an exchange. Id. ¶ 117. Silver swaps— cash-settled agreements pursuant to which one party pays a fixed price for a certain amount of silver, while the other pays a variable rate subject to the Fix Price—are also Fix-dependent instruments. Id. ¶ 116. Because the Fix Price has a direct impact on the price of physical silver and silver-related financial instruments, such as futures contracts, Plaintiffs allege that the Fixing Members controlled a key factor in the pricing of Plaintiffs’ investments in physical silver, silver futures, “mini” silver futures, and options contracts throughout the Class Period. Id. ¶ 4. III. Allegations of Manipulation Plaintiffs claim that Defendants executed a “comprehensive strategy” of manipulation involving several distinct but related components. SAC ¶ 118. First, the Fixing Members allegedly abused their control over the Silver Fixing artificially to suppress the Fix Price on selected days throughout the Class Period. Id. Second, the Defendants are alleged to have improperly shared confidential order information and traded on that information in order to gain an unfair advantage over less-knowledgeable market participants. Id. Third, Defendants allegedly coordinated to maintain fixed bid-ask spreads, thereby gaining a pricing advantage and restraining competition in the silver spot market. Id. ¶ 118. A. Defendants Caused Price Distortions Around the Silver Fixing In support of their claim that Defendants manipulated the Fix Price, Plaintiffs present data analyses demonstrating that pricing behaved in distinctive or “anomalous” ways around the Silver Fixing. SAC ¶¶ 119-76. First, Plaintiffs show that, in every year during the Class Period except for 2010, the Fix Price moved downward around the Silver Fixing much more frequently than it moved upward (ie., on approximately 60% to 70% of trading days). Id. ¶¶ 129-30 & Figs. 5-6. In addition, on a large number of trading days from 2008 onward, there was a statistically significant drop in spot silver prices beginning shortly before the Fixing call. Id. ¶¶ 120, 125-27, Fig. 4 & App. A. This decline is also reflected in the pricing of silver COMEX futures, which showed a similarly precipitous decline around the Silver Fixing from 2007 through 2013. Id. ¶¶ 121-23 & Figs. 2-3. According to Plaintiffs’ analyses, from 2004 through 2013, the price of COMEX silver futures and spot silver dropped more than 15 basis points at the start of the Silver Fixing on days when the Fix Price moved downwards from the prevailing spot price in the hours leading up to the Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 173-75 & Figs. 33-34. From 2006 onward, silver prices also consistently decreased during the Silver Fixing call regardless of whether the Fix Price was ultimately higher or lower than the prevailing spot price at the opening of the Fixing auction, with the decrease beginning shortly before the Fixing on days when the Fix Price moved downwards. Id. ¶¶ 131-33, Figs. 7, 8 & App. B. Declines in silver prices were also significantly larger than increases in silver prices around the Silver Fixing throughout the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 134-37 & Figs. 9-11. According to Plaintiffs, these unusual downward price swings around the Silver Fixing did not occur at noon London time on British holidays, when the Fixing was not held. Id. ¶¶ 171-72. Plaintiffs further claim that these downward price movements “persisted” in the sense that, after a downward shift, prices did not fully recover to their pre-Fixing levels over the course of the remaining trading day. Id. ¶¶ 173-76 & Figs. 33-34. Plaintiffs argue that this pattern of downward price swings and negative returns around the Silver Fixing is particularly unusual in light of the fact that, overall, the price of silver was rising throughout most of the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 138-39. After gradually increasing from 2001 through 2005, a strong bull market prevailed for silver from January 1, 2005, through April 28, 2011, with prices increasing over seven-fold from $6.78 per ounce to $48.44 per ounce. Id. ¶ 139 & Fig. 13. According to Plaintiffs, these swings cannot be fully explained by natural market forces that come into effect during periods of high liquidity; unlike other fixings, the Silver Fixing takes place at noon London time, which is not the most liquid time of the trading day because it is before the markets in the United States are fully open and before the COMEX silver pit opens. Id. ¶¶ 153-54 & Figs. 19-20. To allege plausibly that Defendants were behind these distinctive or “dysfunctional” pricing patterns, Plaintiff have identified 1900 days, representing slightly less than half of the days within the Class Period through the filing of the SAC, on which Defendants’ below-market quotes in the minutes shortly before and during the Silver Fixing coincide with a downward “reversion,” ie., a change in direction of the prevailing market prices for silver. Id. ¶¶ 155-66 & Figs. 21-28. Beginning in or around May 2012, Plaintiffs further claim that the average duration of the Silver Fixing call began to shorten dramatically, from approximately 4 minutes to less than 2 minutes in length. Id. ¶¶ 167-68 & Fig. 29. Despite the shortened duration of the Silver Fixing call, which on some days lasted less than a minute, Defendants’ below-market quotes leading up to the Fixing continued to correlate with reversion-ary downward shifts in the ultimate Fix Price. Id. ¶¶ 165-68. Plaintiffs claim that the frequency, intensity and timing of these downward price movements, combined with the facts that (1) Defendants’ spot quotes correlate with the downward trends and (2) silver prices moved downwards at the Silver Fixing even against upward market trends, leads to a strong inference that Defendants intentionally caused these downward price movements through coordinated price manipulation. Id. ¶¶ 119-169. B. Defendants Profited From Manipulating the Fix Price Plaintiffs allege that Defendants benefit-ted from manipulating the Silver Fixing by profiting from trades that they strategically placed based on their foreknowledge of the Fix Price. In support of this theory, Plaintiffs demonstrate that downward price movements around the Silver Fixing coincided with a significant spike in trading volume and price volatility. Id. ¶ 140. In particular, Plaintiffs present data from 2007 through 2013 showing a sharp increase in trading in COMEX silver futures contracts, beginning just before the start of the Silver Fixing call and peaking (at a volume more than three-times that of the pre-Fixing volume) just two minutes into the Fixing call, at 12:02 p.m. Id. ¶ 141 & Fig. 14. Plaintiffs point to an allegedly-related pattern in the spot market, in which data from 2007 through 2013 shows that price volatility increased at the beginning of the Fixing call and then peaked while the Fixing call was ongoing. Id. ¶¶ 145-46 & Fig. 15. Plaintiffs posit that trading volume and price volatility should have peaked shortly after the Fix Price was published (not before), in accordance with the economic principle that markets tend to react after the announcement of significant information. Id. ¶¶ 146-47 & Fig. 16. Thus, Plaintiffs argue, the odd volatility is circumstantial evidence that the Fixing Members were trading on their advance knowledge of the Fix Price, and they could only have had such knowledge if they were colluding. Id. ¶ 152. Plaintiffs also analyzed the time period from 11:55 A.M.-12:05 P.M., the five minutes before and after the start of the Fixing call, and found “hundreds” of days from 2007 through 2014 on which the price trend of COMEX silver futures changed direction during the Fixing window in conjunction with a contemporaneous increase in trading volume. Id. ¶¶ 185-91 & Figs. 39, 40. Noting that the Fixing call lasted on average approximately 4 minutes, id. ¶¶ 142, 185, Plaintiffs found that these spikes in trading volume occurred even though, on most days, the Fix Price had not yet been released to the market, suggesting that Defendants were trading on advance knowledge of what the Fix Price would be during the Silver Fixing call (for example, by establishing short positions that would be profitable when the price of silver decreased). Id. ¶¶ 142-44. Plaintiffs similarly identified “hundreds” of days from 2007 through 2013, on which there was a spike in trading volume of COMEX silver futures in the 30 minutes preceding the Fixing window and on which the price trend of silver futures changed and changed in the direction that correctly predicted the results of the Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 192-97 & Figs. 35-36, 41-42. Plaintiffs argue that this trading pattern is also circumstantial evidence that Defendants were trading on advance knowledge of the Fix Price, indicating collusion. Id. ¶ 193. Plaintiffs further allege that, from 2007 through 2013, trades on COMEX silver futures placed during the Silver Fixing window successfully predicted whether the Fix Price would increase or decrease from the prevailing spot price before the call with 83.6% accuracy, as opposed to júst 40% accuracy for trades placed before the Fixing call began. Id. ¶¶ 149-51 & Fig. 18. Trades placed during the Fixing call on COMEX silver futures were more than 90% accurate when particularly large returns could be obtained by correctly “guessing” the direction in which the Fix Price would move. Id. ¶ 152 <& Fig. 18. Plaintiffs argue that this pattern suggests that Defendants (and not other less informed market participants) were the ones causing the observed increases in trading volume and price volatility during the Fixing call. Id. In addition, Plaintiffs rely on statistical analyses to show that traders with advance knowledge of the Fix Price were able to generate significant risk-free returns on the trades they placed at the Fix Price, leading to significant profits. Id. ¶¶ 177-97. Using their foreknowledge of the Fix Price as an “arbitrage condition,” Defendants were able to capture profits in the CO-MEX silver futures market from price swings around the Silver Fixing averaging 25 basis points from 2007 through 2013, which would generate returns of more than 87% per year. Id. ¶¶ 179-80 & Fig. 35. Likewise, in the spot silver market in 2011, Defendants could have used their foreknowledge of the Fix Price to obtain a 40 basis point advantage over uninformed traders, resulting in potential returns of 172% per year. Id. ¶ 181 & Fig. 36. Plaintiffs argue that these significant potential returns, which were available only to those with advance knowledge of the Fix Price, motivated Defendants to collude to set the Fix Price. Id. ¶¶ 182-83 & Fig. 37. C. Defendants Benefitted From Improperly Sharing and Trading on Confidential Order Information Plaintiffs assert that Defendants further maximized profits by sharing and trading on private order flow information, including information about Defendants’ client orders and proprietary trading positions. Id. ¶¶ 213-15. By sharing this information, Defendants were allegedly able to front-run or otherwise take advantage of pending “fix orders” (ie., orders to buy or sell a certain amount of silver at the Fix Price) and to coordinate their downward manipulation of the Fix Price based on their collective market positions. Id. ¶¶ 216, 222, 226-28. Defendants also allegedly shared the trigger prices of their clients’ stop-loss orders, which allowed Defendants in effect to force their clients to sell them silver at artificially low prices any time Defendants were able to push silver prices down enough to trigger the stop loss. Id. ¶¶ 224-25. In support of these allegations, however, Plaintiffs’ rely exclusively on various regulatory investigations and findings, discussed further infra, regarding the manipulation of foreign exchange and precious metals markets, generally, not the silver market specifically. Id. ¶ 213. D. Defendants Benefitted From Maintaining Supra-Competitive Bid-Ask Spreads Finally, Plaintiffs assert that Defendants, all of whom are large market makers with respect to silver, used their foreknowledge of the Fix Price to maintain supra-competitive bid-ask spreads that allowed them consistently to purchase silver at artificially low prices and sell it at artificially high prices. Id. ¶¶ 198-200. Because the daily publication of the Fix Price is significant market information, Plaintiffs show that spot and futures bid-ask spreads in the silver market generally tend to be wider (reflecting less certainty) before the Fix Price is published, and narrower (re-fleeting relatively more certainty) after the Fix Price is published. Id. ¶¶ 201-05 & Figs. 44-46. Plaintiffs present data from 2000-2013 showing that, unlike other market participants, whose spot and futures bid-ask spreads tended to narrow upon the publication of the Fix Price, Defendants’ spot bid-ask spreads stayed the same or widened at the Silver Fixing, suggesting that Defendants did not regard the Fix Price as “new” information. Id. ¶¶ 206-07 & Fig. 47. By maintaining these artificially wide spreads, Defendants were able to buy lower and sell higher than they otherwise would have had they been responding to the Fix Price as true market competitors. Id. ¶¶ 198, 200. IV. Regulatory Investigations Plaintiffs rely on various regulatory findings to suggest that Defendants were capable of conspiring to manipulate the Silver Fixing. Plaintiffs note that various regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (“BaFin”), the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”) and the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority have scrutinized or investigated possible rigging of the precious metals markets by Defendants. Id. ¶¶ 235-39,242. In particular, Plaintiffs highlight FIN-MA’s allegations of misconduct following its investigations into UBS’s trading in the foreign exchange (“FX”) and precious metals markets. Id. ¶242. On November 12, 2014, FINMA released a report (the “FINMA UBS Report”) finding that UBS precious metals traders had engaged in conduct against the interests of UBS, including “ ‘jamming’ clients, triggering stop loss orders that forced clients to sell silver to the Defendants at artificially lower prices; sharing non-public client order information with third-parties; and front running client ‘silver fix orders.’ ” Id. ¶¶ 12, 156 (citing Foreign Exchange Trading at UBS AG: Investigation Conducted by FINMA, FINMA (Nov. 12, 2014), http://www.finma.ch/e/aktuell/Documents/ ubs-fx-bericht-20141112-e.pdf). According to a Bloomberg News article, FINMA further claimed to have uncovered “clear attempts to manipulate fixes in the precious metal market,” but not specifically the silver market. SAC ¶ 12 (quoting Elena Logutenkova & Nicholas Larkin, UBS Precious Metals Misconduct Found By Finma in FX Probe, BLOOMBERG L.P. (Nov. 12, 2014), http://www.bloomberg. eom/news/articles/2014-ll-12/finma-s-ubs-foreign-exehange-settlement-includes-precious-metals). As a result of FINMA’s findings, UBS was ordered to pay approximately $139 million to settle allegations of misconduct covering both the FX and precious metals markets. Id. ¶ 242. Plaintiffs argue that because UBS (and also HSBC) traded precious metals during the Class Period from their FX desks, id. ¶ 13, they may have used the same techniques found to have been used to manipulate the FX markets, as documented in their respective settlements with the CFTC and FCA, in manipulating the silver market. Id. DISCUSSION I. Legal Standard In evaluating a motion to dismiss, the Court must “ ‘accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.’ ” Meyer v. JinkoSolar Holdings Co., 761 F.3d 245, 249 (2d Cir. 2014) (quoting N.J. Carpenters Health Fund v. Royal Bank of Scotland Grp., PLC, 709 F.3d 109, 119 (2d Cir. 2013) (alterations omitted)). Nonetheless, in order to survive a motion to dismiss, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter ... to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). “Plausibility” is not certainty. Iqbal does not require the complaint to allege “facts which can have no conceivable other explanation, no matter how improbable that explanation may be.” Cohen v. S.A.C. Trading Corp., 711 F.3d 353, 360 (2d Cir. 2013). But “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, and “[courts] ‘are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation,’ ” Brown v. Daikin Am. Inc., 756 F.3d 219, 225 (2d Cir. 2014) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (other internal quotations marks and citations omitted)). II. Plaintiffs Have Constitutional Standing Plaintiffs must establish both constitutional standing and, with respect to their antitrust claims, antitrust standing. Gelboim v. Bank of Am. Corp., 823 F.3d 759, 770 (2d Cir. 2016) (citing Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Cal. State Council of Carpenters (AGC), 459 U.S. 519, 535 n.31, 103 S.Ct. 897, 74 L.Ed.2d 723 (1983) (other citations omitted)). To have constitutional standing, Plaintiffs must demonstrate that they have suffered an injury-in-fact that is “fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court,” and that is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. Carter v. HealthPort Techs., LLC, 822 F.3d 47, 55 (2d Cir. 2016) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (alterations in the original)). With respect to the injury-in-fact element, Plaintiffs must have suffered “the invasion of a ‘legally protected interest’ in a manner that is ‘concrete and particularized’ and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’ ” In re Foreign Exch. Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litig., 74 F.Supp.3d 581, 595 (S.D.N.Y. 2015) (quoting Bhatia v. Piedrahita, 756 F.3d 211, 218 (2d Cir. 2014) (other citations omitted)). In evaluating constitutional standing, courts “must accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). The Fixing Members argue that, because Plaintiffs were likely both buyers and sellers who traded at various times throughout the trading day, “there is no way to conclude that Plaintiffs sustained any loss as a result of Defendants’ conduct,” suggesting that Plaintiffs have not asserted an injury-in-fact. Defs.’ Mem. at 32-33. Plaintiffs have, however, alleged that they sold silver investments on days when Defendants allegedly manipulated the Fix Price downward, see SAC App. D, and they further allege that Defendants’ downward price manipulation had a lingering effect on silver prices, such that Plaintiffs were forced to sell silver at artificially depressed prices for some to-be-determined period of time after the Silver Fixing. SAC ¶¶ 173-76, 230-33 & Figs. 33-34. While certain Plaintiffs may have actually benefitted from Defendants’ alleged price manipulation, (e.g., they may have purchased silver at artificially suppressed prices and sold when the price suppression had abated), that is not an issue that is ripe for resolution at the pleading stage. See, e.g., In re Foreign Exch. Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litig., 74 F.Supp.3d at 595 (finding an injury-in-fact where plaintiffs’ alleged injuries stemmed from “having to pay supra-competitive prices as a result of [defendants’ manipulation of the [f]ix,” and dismissing defendants’ demand for specifics as to the timing of certain transactions as inappropriate at the pleading stage); see also Ross v. Bank of Am. N.A. (USA), 524 F.3d 217, 222 (2d Cir. 2008) (“[T]he fact that an injury may be outweighed by other benefits, while often sufficient to defeat a claim for damages, does not negate standing.”). Because Plaintiffs have alleged a concrete injury as a result of Defendants’ manipulation (i. e., losses or artificially reduced gains on their silver investments), they have constitutional standing. See Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 770 (noting that the injury component of constitutional standing was “easily satisfied” by plaintiffs’ allegation “that they were harmed by receiving lower returns on LI-BOR-denominated instruments as a result of defendants’ manipulation). III. Plaintiffs Have Antitrust Standing Section 4 of the Clayton Act establishes a private right of action to enforce Section 1 of the Sherman Act. 15 U.S.C. •§ 15. Applying the Supreme Court’s decision in AGC, the Second Circuit has held that “a private antitrust plaintiff [must] plausibly [ ] allege (a) that it suffered a special kind of antitrust injury, and (b) that it is a suitable plaintiff to pursue the alleged antitrust violations and thus is an ‘efficient enforcer’ of the antitrust laws.” Gatt Commc’ns, Inc. v. PMC Assocs., L.L.C., 711 F.3d 68, 76 (2d Cir. 2013) (citations and internal quotations omitted). “[A]ntitrust standing is a threshold, pleading-stage inquiry ....” Id. at 75-76 (quoting NicSand, Inc. v. 3M Co., 507 F.3d 442, 450 (6th Cir. 2007) (en banc)). A. Plaintiffs Have Adequately Alleged an Antitrust Injury “ ‘Congress did not intend the antitrust laws to provide a remedy in damages for all injuries that might conceivably be traced to an antitrust violation,’ ” AGC, 459 U.S. at 534, 103 S.Ct. 897 (quoting Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U.S. 251, 263 n.14, 92 S.Ct. 885, 31 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972)), but only for those injuries reflecting an “anticompetitive effect either of the violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the violation,” Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 772 (quoting Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489, 97 S.Ct. 690, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977)). “Competitors and consumers in the market where trade is allegedly restrained are presumptively the proper plaintiffs to allege antitrust injury.” In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litig., No. 14-3574, 833 F.3d 151, 158, 2016 WL 4191132, at *4 (2d Cir. Aug. 9, 2016) (quoting Serpa Corp. v. McWane, Inc., 199 F.3d 6, 10 (1st Cir. 1999)). In Gelboim, the Second Circuit held that the manipulation of LIBOR rates by banks that participated in the LIBOR benchmarking process gave rise to an antitrust injury on the part of the plaintiffs who transacted in LIBOR-dependent financial instruments. 823 F.3d at 772-75. Even though defendants did not “control the market,” and even though plaintiffs were free to negotiate the interest rates attached to certain financial instruments, the Second Circuit found that plaintiffs had adequately alleged that they were in a “worse position” as a consequence of the defendant banks’ horizontal price-fixing and, therefore, had plausibly alleged an antitrust injury. Id. at 773-75 (“Even though the members of the price-fixing group were in no position to control the market, to the extent that they raised, lowered, or stabilized prices they would be directly interfering with the free play of market forces.” (quoting United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 221, 60 S.Ct. 811, 84 L.Ed. 1129 (1940) (other citation omitted)); id. at 776 ([E]ven if “LIBOR did not necessarily correspond to the interest rate charged for any actual interbank loan[,] ... [t]his is a disputed factual issue that must be reserved for the proof stage.” (internal citations and quotations omitted). Here, Plaintiffs allege that they were harmed by being forced to sell silver and silver derivatives at artificially suppressed prices as a result of Defendants’ manipulation of the Silver Fixing. Because Plaintiffs have alleged that their “loss[es] stem[ ] from a competition -reducing aspect or effect of the [D]efendant[’s] behavior,” Atl. Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U.S. 328, 329, 110 S.Ct. 1884, 109 L.Ed.2d 333 (1990) (emphasis in original), their alleged “injury is of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes [or might make] [defendants’ acts unlawful.” Gatt, 711 F.3d at 76 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also In re Foreign Exch. Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litig., 74 F.Supp.3d at 596 (finding antitrust injury where defendants engaged in price-fixing as horizontal competitors, which caused plaintiffs to pay supra-competitive prices). In another recent decision, the Second Circuit clarified that, although as a general rule only participants in the defendant’s market can claim an antitrust injury, plaintiffs in an affected secondary market may have antitrust standing if then-alleged injuries are “ ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the injury the defendants ultimately sought to inflict” and if their injuries are “the essential means by which defendants’ illegal conduct brings about its ultimate injury to the marketplace.” In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litig., 833 F.3d at 161, 2016 WL 4191132, at *7 (quoting IIA Phillip E. Areeda & Herbert Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 339, at 145 (4th ed. 2014)); see also Sanner v. Board of Trade of City of Chicago, 62 F.3d 918, 929 (7th Cir. 1995) (“[P]articipants in the cash market can be injured by anticompetitive acts committed in the futures market.... The futures market and the cash market for soybeans are thus ‘so closely related’ that the distinction between them is of no consequence to antitrust standing analysis.”). But see Atucha v. Commodity Exch., Inc., 608 F.Supp. 510, 516 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) (plaintiffs alleging that defendants’ conspiracy to manipulate the price of COMEX silver futures caused the silver contracts plaintiff purchased on the London Metal Exchange to be inflated artificially lacked standing despite plaintiffs allegations of an “inextrieabl[e] connection]” between futures markets in the United States and United Kingdom). While the Fixing Members did not raise this theory in their Motion to Dismiss, in light of the Second Circuit’s In re Aluminum Warehousing opinion, they now argue that Plaintiffs cannot assert an antitrust injury because they did not directly participate in the Silver Fixing, which the Fixing Members define as the only “directly impacted” market. See Letter from Joel S. Sanders to the Court, dated August 16, 2016, Dkt. 144 at 3 (“Even if the London Silver Fixing was the means of an anticom-petitive conspiracy, only plaintiffs who participated in the Fixing could have standing”). Even assuming that the Fixing Members’ argument was properly asserted, the Fixing Members fail to explain why the Fixing itself (which all parties acknowledge to be an artificially-constructed private “auction” that was instituted for the sole purpose of allowing the Fixing Members to set a market-wide benchmark) should be considered the affected “market” for antitrust purposes. While the guiding precedent leaves room for debate regarding how the “market” should be defined under the circumstances of this case, the suggestion that the alleged conspirators are the only entities with standing to bring antitrust claims relating to the Silver Fixing seems absurd. Here, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants artificially depressed the price of silver for some period of time around the Fixing in order to profit from silver and silver futures trading at prices that were advantageous to them vis á vis Plaintiffs and other less-informed market participants. These allegations are sufficient to demonstrate that Plaintiffs’ injuries are “inextricably intertwined” with the Defendants’ alleged manipulation of the Fix Price for antitrust standing purposes to the extent that Defendants relied on Plaintiffs’ and other market participants’ trading on a manipulated Fix Price in order to carry out their alleged scheme. The Court therefore finds that Plaintiffs have adequately stated an antitrust injury. B. Some Plaintiffs Have Established That They Are Efficient Enforcers The Second Circuit has identified four factors to be considered in determining whether a particular plaintiff has standing as an “efficient enforcer” to seek damages under the antitrust laws: (1) whether the violation was a direct or remote cause of the injury; (2) whether there is an identifiable class of other persons whose self-interest would normally lead them to sue for the violation; (3) whether the injury was speculative; and (4) whether there is a risk that other plaintiffs would be entitled to recover duplicative damages or that damages would be difficult to apportion among possible victims of the antitrust injury.... Built into the analysis is an assessment of the “chain of causation” between the violation and the injury. Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 772 (citations omitted). In other contexts the Supreme Court has noted that the first factor, requiring proximate causation, “must be met in every case.” Lexmark Int'l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1377, 1392, 188 L.Ed.2d 392 (2014). In contrast, the third and fourth factors are “problematic” and the “ ‘potential difficulty in ascertaining and apportioning damages is not ... an independent basis for denying standing where it is adequately alleged that a defendant’s conduct has proximately injured an interest of the plaintiffs that the statute protects’ and other relief might be available.” DNAML PTY, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., 25 F.Supp.3d 422, 430 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (quoting Lexmark, 134 S.Ct. at 1392 (emphasis in the original)). 1. Plaintiffs Have Demonstrated a Sufficiently Direct Injury Evaluating the directness of an injury is essentially a proximate cause analysis that hinges upon “whether the harm alleged has a sufficiently close connection to the conduct the statute prohibits.” Lexmark, 134 S.Ct. at 1390; see also AGC, 459 U.S. at 540-41, 103 S.Ct. 897 (evaluating directness in light of the “chain of causation” between the asserted injury and the alleged restraint of trade); Lotes Co. v. Hon Hai Precision Indus. Co., 753 F.3d 395, 412 (2d Cir. 2014) (considering, inter alia, whether the alleged injury was in the scope of the risk that defendant’s wrongful act created; was a natural or probable consequence of defendant’s conduct; was the result of a superseding or intervening cause; or “was anything more than an antecedent event without which the harm would not have occurred” (quoting CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride, 564 U.S. 685, 717, 131 S.Ct. 2630, 180 L.Ed.2d 637 (2011)) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting)). “Where the chain of causation between the asserted injury and the alleged restraint in the market ‘contains several somewhat vaguely defined links,’ the claim is insufficient to provide antitrust standing.” Lay-don v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., No. 12-cv-3419, 2014 WL 1280464 at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 28, 2014) (citing AGC, 459 U.S. at 540, 103 S.Ct. 897). As an appendix to the SAC, Plaintiffs have provided a list of the dates, quantities, and types of silver investments that Plaintiffs sold on days when Defendants are alleged to have manipulated the Silver Fixing. SAC App. D at 13-26. Plaintiffs do not state the actual prices or times at which they sold their silver investments but instead allege that they sold their silver investments at prices that were “directly and artificially impacted by the Silver Fisting].” SAC ¶230. Plaintiffs elsewhere allege that the silver investments they sold were “priced, bench-marked, and/or settled to the Fix Price.” Id. ¶ 3. With respect to physical sellers, the SAC alleges that Plaintiffs’ OTC trades for physical silver were priced “by reference to the Fix [P]rice,” id. ¶ 103, and it appears that Plaintiffs who sold silver bars or coins on the American Precious Metals Exchange may have transacted at a price representing the Fix Price plus a premium, id. ¶ 104 n.29. Plaintiffs do not, however, clearly define the relationship between the Fix Price (which is only set once daily), spot pricing (“which is always changing (just like a normal stock changing minute-by-minute throughout the day”)), and the exact prices at which Plaintiffs sold silver during the Class Period. See First Time Buyers FAQs, APMEX, http://www. apmex.com/first-time-buyer (cited in SAC ¶ 104 n.29); see also SAC App. D. With respect to sellers of silver futures and options, Plaintiffs claim that “the value of these contracts is directly tied to the price of physical silver,” id. ¶ 109, and “directly impacted by the Fix [P]rice,” id. ¶ 112, highlighting, for example that “99.85% of the variation in the price of COMEX silver futures contracts between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2013 is explained by the results of the Silver Fix.” SAC ¶ 114. The Fixing Members rely on several lines of cases to argue that, regardless of whether Plaintiffs sold physical silver or silver derivatives, their claims are too indirect and remote to confer antitrust standing. First, the Fixing Members argue that Plaintiffs lack standing because “only direct purchasers of [the] monopolized product ]” have antitrust standing, and Plaintiffs did not transact directly (or indirectly) with the Defendants. Defs.’ Mem. at 29 (quoting In re Pub. Offering Antitrust Litig., No. 98-7890 (LMM), 2004 WL 350696, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 25, 2004)). In making this argument, the Fixing Members rely heavily on Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, in which the Supreme Court held that indirect purchasers lacked standing to recover damages for overcharges resulting from antitrust violations that were passed on through a distribution chain. 431 U.S. 720, 729, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707 (1977). The Court’s reasoning in Illinois Brick was predicated on its concern that permitting indirect purchasers to sue for antitrust violations “would create a serious risk of multiple liability for defendants,” id. at 730, 97 S.Ct. 2061, and the notion that the antitrust laws would be more “effectively enforced by concentrating the full recovery for the overcharge in the direct purchasers,” id. at 735, 97 S.Ct. 2061. As a result, downstream purchasers in a distribution chain typically lack antitrust standing. See, e.g., Kansas v. UtiliCorp United, Inc., 497 U.S. 199, 110 S.Ct. 2807, 111 L.Ed.2d 169 (1990) (public utilities but not residential customers to whom they sell gas have standing to sue natural gas companies for antitrust injuries); In re Beef Indus. Antitrust Litig., 710 F.2d 216 (5th Cir. 1983) (packers who sell to retail grocers have standing to sue grocers alleged to have conspired to set wholesale beef prices at artificially depressed levels, but feeders who sell to packers may not). This argument, however, mischaracter-izes Plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs do not allege that Defendants suppressed the price of a particular bar of silver that was later sold through a distribution chain to Plaintiffs but rather that Defendants suppressed the Fix Price, which had a direct (and negative) impact on the value of their silver investments. SAC ¶¶ 102-118. In addition, the Fixing Members overreach when they suggest that Illinois Brick has been interpreted to deny standing to every plaintiff who is not in direct privity with the defendant. Defs.’ Mem. at 29. Indeed, since Illinois Brick was decided, courts have found that differently-situated plaintiffs may have standing to assert antitrust injuries, provided that each plaintiff suffered a unique and sufficiently direct injury as a result of defendants’ anticompeti-tive conduct. See, e.g., Blue Shield of Va. v. McCready, 457 U.S. 465, 102 S.Ct. 2540, 73 L.Ed.2d 149 (1982) (employee who received health coverage under a group plan purchased by her employer had antitrust standing even though she was not a competitor of, or in direct privity with, defendants because her injury was “inextricably intertwined with the injury the conspirators sought to inflict”); In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litig., 833 F.3d at 161, 2016 WL 4191132, at *7 (an antitrust defendant may “corrupt a separate market in order to achieve its illegal ends, in which case the injury suffered can be said to be ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the injury of the ultimate target”); Loeb Indus., Inc. v. Sumitomo Corp., 306 F.3d 469, 481 (7th Cir. 2002) (certain copper purchasers had antitrust standing to bring claims against defendants who conspired to manipulate the price of copper futures, even though plaintiffs never dealt directly with the defendants because “different injuries in distinct markets may be inflicted by a single antitrust conspiracy”). Next, the Fixing Members argue that Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries are raised under a so-called “umbrella theory” of liability, which has not been well-received by at least some courts in this Circuit. Defs.’ Mem. at 29-30 (citing cases). “Umbrella standing concerns are most often evident when a cartel controls only part of a market, but a consumer who dealt with a non-cartel member alleges that he sustained injury by virtue of the cartel’s raising of prices in the market as a whole.” Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 778. As noted in Gelboim, the viability of the concept of umbrella liability has not been resolved in this circuit. Id. at 778-79. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the viability of the theory of umbrella liability, and the unique facts of this case, analyzing Plaintiffs’ claims under an umbrella theory of liability leads to no dispos-itive conclusions. In the typical umbrella liability case, plaintiffs’ injuries arise from a transaction with a non-conspiring retailer who is able, but not required, to charge supra-competitive prices as the result of defendants’ conspiracy to create a pricing “umbrella.” See, e.g., Pollock v. Citrus Assocs. of N.Y. Cotton Exch., Inc., 512 F.Supp. 711, 719 n.9 (S.D.N.Y. 1981); Gross v. New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., 955 F.Supp. 242, 245-47 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (rejecting umbrella theory of liability and noting that “the causal connection between the alleged injury and the conspiracy is attenuated by significant intervening causative factors,” most notably, the “independent pricing decisions of non-conspiring retailers”). Here, in contrast, Plaintiffs allege that the “Fix Price determines the price of the entire silver market” such that, at least for some subset of Plaintiffs, there is little room for any interfering price impact due to the actions of non-culpable entities or exogenous market forces. Pis.’ Opp. at 29. In other words, Defendants are not merely alleged to have conspired to alter prices within a particular segment or region of the market but rather are alleged to have manipulated the benchmark price, upon which all market participants (buyers and sellers alike) relied in trading silver investments across a variety of markets. As the Second Circuit made clear in Gelboim, under such circumstances, there appears to be little, if any, difference between the injuries suffered by market participants who sold silver to one of the Defendants (the alleged cartel members) and those who sold to non-conspiring third-parties. Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 779. Accepting as true Plaintiffs’ allegations that Defendants’ suppression of the Fix Price had a direct impact on market participants who sold silver on days when the Fix was manipulated (regardless of the counterparty), the Court finds that at least some subset of Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged proximate causation for purposes of antitrust standing. That said, there appear to be substantial challenges to Plaintiffs’ causation theory: the Court is extremely skeptical that all market participants who sold silver or silver instruments on alleged manipulation days will ultimately be able to move forward with their claims. See id. (“Requiring the Banks to pay treble damages to every plaintiff who ended up on the wrong side of a[ ] [relevant transaction] would, if appellants’ allegations were proved at trial, not only bankrupt [some] of the world’s most important financial institutions, but also vastly extend the potential scope of antitrust liability in myriad markets where derivative instruments have proliferated.”). Although causation and standing are threshold issues to be decided at the pleading stage, because the record is not (and could not reasonably be) sufficiently developed with respect to Plaintiffs’ claim that the effect of Defendants’ alleged manipulation persisted throughout the trading day and into future trading days (SAC ¶¶ 173-76, Figs. 33-34), the Court finds that these questions must be deferred to the class certification stage. 2. Some Plaintiffs Are Sufficiently Direct and Interested Victims for Purposes of Enforcing the Antitrust Laws As alluded to, swpra, the Court is convinced that at least some subset of Plaintiffs has suffered a sufficiently direct injury and therefore is sufficiently interested to litigate the antitrust claims at issue. The most direct victims of Defendants’ alleged manipulation would presumably be sellers who transacted at the Fix Price or at a price that incorporated the Fix Price as a component and sellers who transacted within a circumscribed time period around the Silver Fixing (before the impact of Defendants’ alleged manipulation had been diluted by extraneous market factors). While it is unclear how many market participants transacted “at” the Fix Price on “manipulation days” versus how many Plaintiffs transacted in close temporal proximity to the Fixing window, the potential existence of more direct plaintiffs does not necessarily defeat Plaintiffs’ standing to the extent that Plaintiffs suffered separate, and sufficiently direct, injuries. In re DDAVP Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litig., 585 F.3d 677, 689 (2d Cir. 2009) (“Inferiority to other potential plaintiffs can be relevant, but it is not dispositive.” (internal quotations and citation omitted)); Ice Cream Liquidation, Inc. v. Land O’Lakes, Inc., 253 F.Supp.2d 262, 274 (D. Conn. 2003) (“[T]he antitrust laws do not limit standing to only that class of purchasers with the most direct injury.”); cf. DNAML, 25 F.Supp.3d at 431 (“A retailer’s lost profits are wholly distinct from consumer overcharges, and to “[d]eny[] the plaintiff ] a remedy in favor of a suit by [consumers] would thus be likely to leave a significant antitrust violation ... unreme-died.” (alterations in the original) (citations omitted)). This is particularly true where, as here, a rigid rule requiring Plaintiffs to have transacted “at” the Fix Price would effectively eliminate private enforcement with respect to all claims brought by futures sellers, who dominate the market and who transact via an exchange rather than OTC or through contracts tied to the Fix Price. The Court therefore finds that at least some group of Plaintiffs are sufficiently interested so as to be appropriate antitrust enforcers. 3. Standing Is Not Defeated By the Risks of Speculative Injuries, Du-plicative Damages and Difficulties in Apportioning Damages Standing may be lacking where courts would otherwise be required to engage in “hopeless speculation concerning the relative effect of an alleged conspiracy in the [relevant markets] ..., where countless other market variables could have intervened to affect [] pricing decisions.” Reading Indus., Inc. v. Kennecott Copper Corp., 631 F.2d 10, 13-14 (2d Cir. 1980). For the reasons stated, supra, the Court is concerned that at least some Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries are highly speculative. Although Plaintiffs argue that the Silver Fixing is the “only” factor that goes into determining the price of Plaintiffs’ silver investments, Pis.’ Opp. at 22 (citing SAC ¶¶ 103-112), this allegation is, at a minimum, hyperbolic: the Silver Fixing occurs only once a day, at 12:00 P.M. London time, while silver instruments can be sold OTC twenty-four hours a day and via exchanges that have varying hours of operation all around the world. Plaintiffs do not deny that other market variables may have affected silver prices before and after the Silver Fixing. (Indeed, were it otherwise, pricing across silver markets would essentially be flat, varying only once a day at the 12:00 P.M. Silver Fixing.) And, while Plaintiffs allege that Defendants’ price suppression lingered long after the end of the Fixing call, a significant evidentiary record will need to be developed before the Court can determine what role any such lingering suppression played in the losses suffered by Plaintiffs at various points throughout the trading day in the different markets in which they traded. Nonetheless, because exogenous factors affect price movements in most antitrust cases and the existence of such factors does not alone defeat standing, the Court finds that issues regarding the speculative nature of Plaintiffs’ injuries and damages can best be resolved at a later stage. See Grosser v. Commodity Exch., Inc., 639 F.Supp. 1293, 1319-20 (S.D.N.Y. 1986), aff'd, 859 F.2d 148 (2d Cir. 1988) (rejecting presence of extraneous factors affecting price movement as a reason to deny standing); Strax v. Commodity Exch., Inc., 524 F.Supp. 936, 940 (S.D.N.Y. 1981) (“[W]hile—as is true with the vast majority of antitrust cases—proof of damages will most likely not be simple, this is not an action ‘based on conjectural theories of injury and attenuated economic causality that would mire the courts in intricate efforts to recreate the possible permutations in the causes and effects of a price change.’” (quoting Reading, 631 F.2d at 14)). Finally, with respect to damages, the Court finds that here, as in the LIBOR cases, “it is difficult to see how [Plaintiffs] would arrive at [a “just and reasonable estimate of damages”], even with the aid of expert testimony. Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 779 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless, because “some degree of uncertainty stems from the nature of antitrust law,” id. and because the “potential difficulty in ascertaining and apportioning damages is not ... an independent basis for denying standing where it is adequately alleged that a defendant’s conduct has proximately injured an interest of the plaintiffs that the statute protects,” Lex-mark, 134 S.Ct. at 1392 (emphasis in original), the Court finds that standing has been adequately pled. In addition, given that, here, Plaintiffs have alleged separate injuries (rather than derivative or duplica-tive injuries) and inasmuch as DOJ’s Antitrust Division has closed its investigation and no governmental entities have imposed penalties or fines against the Fixing Members relating to this alleged conspiracy, any concerns regarding duplication and apportionment appear to be hypothetical or minimal. The Court therefore finds that, although it harbors grave doubts regarding the scope of Plaintiffs’ proposed class, Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that they are efficient enforcers for purposes of antitrust standing. IV. Plaintiffs Adequately Allege an Unlawful Agreement to Fix Prices and Restrain Trade from January 1, 2007 through December 31, 2013 Plaintiffs bring claims for price fixing, bid rigging, and conspiracy in restraint of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. “Horizontal price fixing— that is, price fixing by competitors in the same market—is per se illegal.” In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litig., 95 F.Supp.3d at 447 (citing Socony-Vacuum, 310 U.S. at 223-24, 60 S.Ct. 811). Claims for bid rigging, on the other hand, typically involve competitors conspiring to raise prices for purchasers—often, but not always, governmental entities—who acquire products or services by soliciting competing bids. See, e.g., Gatt, 711 F.3d at 72-74; State of N.Y. v. Hendrickson Bros., 840 F.2d 1065 (2d Cir.1988). With regard to unlawful restraints of trade, “[b]ecause [Section] 1 of the Sherman Act does not prohibit [all] unreasonable restraints of trade ... but only restraints effected by a contract, combination, or conspiracy, ... [t]he crucial question is whether the challenged anticompetitive conduct stem[s] from independent decision or from an agreement, tacit or express.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 553, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (alterations in the original) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Regardless of whether Plaintiffs’ allegations are evaluated in terms of price fixing, bid rigging or an unlawful restraint of trade, an unlawful agreement must be pleaded with respect to each antitrust claim brought under Section 1. See, e.g., In re Elevator Antitrust Litig., 502 F.3d 47, 50 (2d Cir. 2007) (“To survive a motion to dismiss ... a complaint must contain enough factual matter ... to suggest that an agreement ... was made.”) (internal citations and quotations omitted). To allege an unlawful agreement, Plaintiffs must assert either direct evidence (such as a recorded phone call or email in which competitors agreed to fix prices) or “circumstantial facts supporting the inference that a conspiracy existed.” Mayor & City Council of Baltimore (City of Baltimore) v. Citigroup, Inc., 709 F.3d 129, 136 (2d Cir. 2013) (emphasis in original). Because conspiracies “nearly always must be proven through inferences that may fairly be drawn from the behavior of the alleged conspirators,” the Court cannot take Plaintiffs’ failure to present direct evidence as a sign that no conspiracy existed. In re Foreign Exch. Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litig., 74 F.Supp.3d at 591 (quoting Anderson News, L.L.C. v. Am. Media, Inc., 680 F.3d 162, 183 (2d Cir. 2012)). At the pleading stage, Plaintiffs “need not show that [their] allegations suggesting an agreement are more likely than not true or that they rule out the possibility of independent action .... ” Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 781 (quoting Anderson News, 680 F.3d at 184). Instead, “ ‘a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if ... actual proof of those facts is improbable, and ... a recovery is very remote and unlikely’ as long as the complaint presents a plausible interpretation of wrongdoing.” In re Foreign Exch. Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litig., 74 F.Supp.3d at 591 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955) (emphasis in original); see also Gelboim, 823 F.3d at 781 (“At the pleading stage, a complaint claiming conspiracy, to be plausible, must plead ‘enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest that an agreement was made ....’” (quoting Anderson News, 680 F.3d at 184)). Here, Plaintiffs clear the plausibility standard, albeit barely, with respect to their price-fixing and unlawful restraint of trade claims under Section 1 based on allegations that the Fixing Members conspired opportunistically to depress the Fix Price between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2013. A. Plaintiffs’ Allegations of Parallel Conduct Plaintiffs allege that Defendants engaged in parallel conduct , by opportunistically causing “reversions” in spot pricing in advance of the Silver Fixing. In particular, Plaintiffs claim to have identified 1900 days during the Class Period on which Defendants’ below-market spot quotes leading up to the Fixing allegedly caused downward “reversions” in the spot market, leading to the artificial suppression of the Fix Price. Id. ¶¶ 155-66, Figs. 21-28, App. D. The SAC describes in detail six such days in which two or more Defendants appear to offer spot quotes that correlate with a downward trend in silver prices leadings up to the Silver Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 155-66 & Figs. 21-28. The Fixing Members correctly argue that this pattern of conduct is, without more, of limited persuasive value. While Plaintiffs make a modest showing that different pairs or groupings of Defendants routinely lowered their quotes in advance of the Fixing, Plaintiffs acknowledge that other non-Defendant market participants (including B