Full opinion text
OPINION AND ORDER VALERIE CAPRONI, United States District Judge The Complaint in these consolidated cases, which involve the alleged manipulation and suppression of gold prices during the period from January 1, 2004 to June 30, 2013 (the “Class Period”), suggests that in the era of supercomputers, big data, and sophisticated statistical anal-yses, it may be very difficult to hide illegal conduct that might otherwise have escaped detection. On the other hand, it also brings to mind a quip attributed to Benjamin Disraeli—there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. Whether the detailed statistical analyses contained in the Complaint reveal ground truth about the activities of the Defendant banks who participated in the Gold Fix or are on the “lies, damn lies and statistics” side of the dichotomy remains to be seen. The Defendants in this case are UBS AG and UBS Securities LLC (together, “UBS”); The London Gold Market Fixing Ltd. (“LGMF”); and the five LGMF fixing banks during the Class Period: The Bank of Nova Scotia (“BNS”), Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Société Générale (collectively, the “Fixing Banks”). Plaintiffs are individuals and entities that sold physical gold, gold futures traded on the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX”) market, shares in gold exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), or options on gold ETFs during the Class Period. Seeking to recover losses suffered as a result of Defendants’ alleged manipulation and suppression of the price of gold through the gold “fixing” process, Plaintiffs bring putative class action claims for (1) unlawful restraint of trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.; (2) market manipulation in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), 7 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq. and CFTC Rule 180.2; (3) employment of a manipulative or deceptive device and false reporting in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq. and CFTC Rule 180.1; (4) principal-agent liability in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq.; (5) aiding and abetting manipulation in violation of the CEA, 7 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq., and (6) unjust enrichment. On July 22, 2014, the Court appointed Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP and Berger & Montague P.C. as interim class co-counsel. See Maher v. Bank of Nova Scotia et al., 14-cv-1459 (S.D.N.Y.) (VEC), Dkt. 29. On August 13, 2014, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidis-trict Litigation transferred one case from the Northern District of California to this Court for “coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings” along with other cases that had been filed in this District. In re Commodity Exch., Inc., Gold Futures & Options Trading Litig., 38 F.Supp.3d 1394, 1395 (J.P.M.L. 2014); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Discovery was stayed by the Court in these consolidated actions on October 20, 2014. Dkt. 22. On March 16, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a Second Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint (the “SAC”), Dkt. 44. Defendants have moved to dismiss the SAC through three separate motions, the first filed by UBS, Dkt. 71, the second filed by the Fixing Banks, Dkt. 73, and the third filed by LGMF, Dkt. 75. For the following reasons, the Fixing Banks’ Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART, UBS’s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED, and LGMF’s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. BACKGROUND I. The LGMF Gold Fixing London’s gold market (now known as the “London Bullion Market”) has been the center of the global market for gold since the late 1800s. SAC ¶ 93. Trading within the London Bullion Market, which operates on an over-the-counter basis, 24-hours a day, is the “indisputable international standard for gold and silver dealing and settlement.” Id. ¶¶ 94-95. The London gold fixing process (the “Fixing” or the “Gold Fixing”) has been integral to price-setting and trading on the London Bullion Market and the various gold markets around the world since 1919. Id. ¶¶ 77, 96. Historically, the purpose of the Fixing was to determine a daily benchmark price for one troy ounce of “Good Delivery” gold at a specified time during the London trading day. Id. ¶ 76. Because there is no single forum for trading gold and gold-related investments, the price determined through the Gold Fixing (the “Fix Price”) is intended to provide an objective price point for gold producers, consumers, investors, derivatives traders, and central banks, and has thus become “the dominant price benchmark for the world’s gold trading.” Id. ¶ 77. Unlike many alleged price-fixing conspiracies, the fact that the Fixing Banks met daily to fix the price of gold was known to all market participants. At all times during the Class Period, the Gold Fixing took place each business day at 10:30 A.M. (the “AM Fixing”) and 3:00 P.M. (the “PM Fixing”) London time. Id. ¶¶ 1 n.1. During the Class Period, the Fixing was administered by the Fixing Banks, operating collectively through LGMF. Id. ¶¶ 79, 84. Founded in 1994, LGMF is a private company organized and based in the United Kingdom. Id. ¶¶ 72-73. Throughout the Class Period, LGMF was owned and controlled by the Fixing Banks. Id. ¶ 72. Throughout the Class Period, the Gold Fixing was conducted through a “Walra-sian” auction. Id. ¶ 81. Leading up to the Fixing, the Fixing Banks would receive buy and sell orders from clients and then combine those orders with orders from their own proprietary trading desks to come up with an aggregate buy or sell position at a particular spot price. Id. ¶ 316. At the outset of the auction, which took place via private teleconference, the chair (a position that rotated among the Fixing Banks) would provide an opening price, which constituted the current prevailing spot price for gold at the start of the call. Id. ¶¶ 81-82, 315. Each of the Fixing Banks would then announce how many bars of gold they wished to buy or sell at that price based on the net supply or demand for spot gold from their order books. Id. ¶¶ 82, 316. If there was no buying or selling interest, or if buying and selling interest were roughly equivalent, the chair could announce the price of gold as “fixed.” Id. ¶ 82. Otherwise, the chair would adjust the price upward or downward until buying and selling interest reached a rough equilibration, within 50-bars. Id. Once the chair declared the price as “fixed,” the Fix Price would then be sent to the London Bullion Market Association for publication. Id. ¶ 82. During the Class Period, no third-party administrator supervised the call; the call was unrecorded and no records of the Fixing Banks’ communications were kept. Id. ¶ 236. II. The London Bullion Market Association The London Bullion Market Association (“LBMA”) is a trade association that coordinates activities on behalf of its members, market-making members, and other participants in the London Bullion Market. Id. ¶¶ 86-90. The LBMA’s members include major “bullion banks,” such as the Fixing Banks and UBS, which function as suppliers and holders of physical gold. Id. ¶ 89. The LBMA’s market-making members are responsible for quoting bid and offer prices in gold spot, future, and options during the London trading day. Id. ¶ 90. UBS and each of the Fixing Banks are LBMA market-makers responsible for offering quotes in one or more of spot gold, futures, and options, and each bank also holds a reserved seat on the LBMA management committee. Id. ¶¶ 90, 92. Defendants Barclays, BNS, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and UBS are also clearing members for the LBMA. Id. ¶¶ 91, 94 & n.15, 95. In November 2014, after Deutsche Bank’s resignation of its LGMF membership, id. ¶¶ 22, 279, and the LBMA’s review of the Fixing process, a third-party entity, ICE Benchmark Administration (“IBA”), was selected to provide independent administration and governance for the Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 22, 85. Since 2013, the LGMF has also adopted a conflict of interest policy and decided to appoint a “Supervisory Committee” to implement and enforce a code of conduct. Id. ¶ 274. III. The Gold Market During the Class Period Physical gold is sold on numerous over-the-counter venues and is the underlying asset in a variety of derivative and security investments, such as gold futures, forwards, options, and gold ETFs (collectively, along with physical gold bullion and gold bullion coins, “Gold Investments”). Id. ¶ 23 & n.13; Defs.’ Mem. at 5 (citing Declaration of Stephen Ehrenberg, dated April 30, 2015, Ex. 2 (SPDR Gold Trust Prospectus, Apr. 26, 2012), at 15). While liquidity in gold trading fora varies throughout the day, the periods of greatest liquidity are typically after the trading venues in the United States open, when “trading in the European time zones overlaps with trading in the United States.” Defs.’ Mem. at 4 (citing Ex. 2 (SPDR Gold Trust Prospectus, Apr. 26, 2012), at 15). Between 2004 and 2012, a bull market prevailed for gold, with the price of gold steadily increasing from approximately $400 per troy ounce to around $1800 per troy ounce. SAC ¶ 110. IV. The Impact of the Fix Price on Gold Investments Plaintiffs allege that, although there is no centralized market for gold, the gold market operates efficiently in the sense that the Fix Price is immediately reflected in the price of “physical” gold as well as in the price of various other Gold Investments. Id. ¶¶ 76, 309-10. The Fix Price strongly correlates with the price of gold futures and options on futures contracts traded on the COMEX, and, according to Plaintiffs, there was a 99.9% correlation between gold spot prices and futures prices during the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 108-09, 309. Similarly, pricing for gold ETF shares, which correlates closely with the spot price of gold, moved in tandem with the Fix Price during the Class Period, with a correlation co-efficient of 99.6%. Id. ¶¶ 103,113, 309. As a result, market participants rely on the Fix Price, and the Fix Price is often built into contracts governing gold-related investments. For example, buyers and sellers of physical gold can contract to transact at the Fix Price at a specified future date. Id. ¶¶ 3, 97. Likewise, gold derivatives, such as gold futures, forwards, and options contracts, including futures and options traded on COMEX, may be pegged to (settled at) the Fix Price, id. ¶¶ 98-99, and cash flows for many gold derivatives are calculated in reference to the Fix Price on a specified date, id ¶ 3. The LBMA characterizes the Fix Price as the “globally accepted” benchmark, and the prospectus for the largest gold ETF, SPDR Gold Trust, states, “The Fix [Price] is the most widely used benchmark for daily gold prices and is quoted by various financial information sources.” Id. ¶ 96. According to a survey cited by Plaintiffs, the vast majority of LBMA participants base at least a portion of their gold trading on the Fix Price. Id. ¶ 107. In this sense, the Fix Price is “inextricably intertwined” with the pricing of various Gold Investments and is a built-in component of many contracts governing gold-related investments. Id. ¶ 106. Although Plaintiffs did not sell gold pursuant to contracts that were expressly pegged to the Fix Price, they argue that, because the Fix Price has a direct impact on pricing throughout the gold market, the Fixing Banks controlled a key factor in the pricing of Plaintiffs’ Gold Investments throughout the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 106-06, 323-24. V. Allegations of Manipulation At the heart of Plaintiffs’ Complaint is the theory that the Fixing Banks, by virtue of their overt but non-public interactions in connection with the daily Gold Fixing, were uniquely positioned to effectively “name their own” Fix Price and thereby to gain an unfair advantage with respect to the contracts, derivatives, and physical positions that they held in the market, all of which were correlated to the Fix Price in one way or another. Id. ¶ 5. In particular, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants were motivated to profit, and did in fact profit, from their intentional and coordinated suppression of the Fix Price around the PM Fixing, which had the effect of depressing prices for Gold Investments during the Class Period. Id. ¶ 115. A. The Methods By Which Defendants Allegedly Manipulated the Fix Price Plaintiffs allege that Defendants colluded artificially to suppress the price of gold in several ways. First, leading up to the London PM Fixing, Defendants allegedly collected confidential client order information and then improperly shared that information amongst themselves in order to compare and coordinate the execution of particularly large sell trades, thereby driving down the gold spot price immediately before and dining the Fixing call. Id. ¶¶ 8, 238-40, 243, 257 & chart. In Plaintiffs’ view, the Fixing call provided the perfect opportunity (and veneer of legitimacy) to enable the Fixing Banks privately to share order information and conspire to manipulate the Fix Price when it collectively suited them to do so. Id. ¶ 9. During the Fixing window itself, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants offered “rigged” auction rates that were either fabricated, id. ¶ 244, or artificially depressed by Defendants’ prior coordination of large sell orders, which had the effect of magnifying a downward effect in the resulting Fix Price. Id. ¶ 202. Defendants also allegedly communicated with each other throughout the day through phone calls, chat rooms, and other forms of electronic communication to coordinate trading (including to “net off’ large buy orders) in order to ensure that their efforts to drive down the gold price were not undone by counteracting trading activity. Id. ¶¶ 237-38. Unlike other benchmark fixing cases, however, here Plaintiffs have no direct evidence of such communications. B. Defendants Caused Price Distortions Around the Gold Fixing In support of their claim that Defendants manipulated the Fix Price, Plaintiffs present data analyses demonstrating that pricing behaved in what they characterize as distinctive or “anomalous” ways around the PM Fixing. A basic premise of Plaintiffs’ argument is that, absent collusion or manipulation, trading around the PM Fixing would have been “random” in the sense that gold prices would have been equally likely to move up or down around the PM Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 124, 178. Instead, from 2001 through 2012, the spot price of gold moved downward around the Gold Fixing much more frequently than it moved upward. Id. ¶¶ 7, 21 & chart. Plaintiffs present analy-ses of data purporting to show that, in every year from 2001 through 2012, the spot price of gold decreased during the PM Fixing on at least 60-75% of the aggregate annual trading days, an occurrence that is statistically highly improbable under circumstances where the chances of a price increase or decrease are roughly equal. Id. ¶¶ 21, 123-25 & charts. In addition, from 2000-2012, the incidence of days on which the PM Fix Price was lower than the prevailing spot price immediately prior to the beginning of the Fix call was much higher than the incidence of days in which the price of gold dropped overall. Id. ¶¶ 127 & n.27, 128. Plaintiffs further highlight data showing that, from 2007-2013, the Gold Fixing was the only time of day when gold prices showed statistically significant negative returns (downward price movements), with the largest swing occurring at the PM Fixing. Id. ¶ 154. In addition to the frequency of downward price swings at the PM Fixing, from 2006 through 2012, downward spikes around the PM Fixing were significantly more intense than other price swings observed throughout the trading day. Id. ¶¶ 138, 149-153 & App. D, App. G. In addition, when the Fix Price went down at the PM Fixing, it decreased significantly more than it increased when it went up. Id. ¶¶ 7, 133-35 & chart. For example, the PM Fix Price was in the lowest 5th percentile of gold pricing throughout the day twice as often as one would expect if large price increases were as likely as large price declines. Id. ¶¶ 132-35. Notably, these dramatic swings occurred only around the PM Fixing; during the AM Fixing, there were actually fewer price swings than would otherwise be expected under random conditions. Id. ¶ 146 & chart. Plaintiffs further allege that, every year during the Class Period, downward movement in the price of gold as measured by OTC prices occurred consistently, not only following the PM Fixing, but also in the minutes leading up to the PM Fixing, when the Defendants were allegedly coordinating their trading activities based on shared client order information. Id. ¶¶ 118, 138 & App. D. In support of their allegations that Defendants were behind these distinctive or “dysfunctional” pricing patterns, Plaintiffs collected approximately 300,000 price quotes from the Defendants around the PM Fixing from 2001-2013 and found that Defendants’ gold quotes were consistently clustered together at price points that were lower than other market participants, by an average of .7 basis points (or .007%) from 2001 through 2012, and that Defendants’ quotes were clustered together even more on days when the Fix Price moved downwards around the PM Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 13, 202, 250-53 & chart, 256-257 & chart, 263. Finally, Plaintiffs identify several days during the Class Period when Defendants’ quotes appear to have caused, or at a minimum correlated with, downward spikes in the PM Fixing. Id. ¶¶ 261-67 & App. I. According to Plaintiffs, these downward movements in the Fix Price caused gold prices to drop in both the spot and futures markets. See id. ¶ 156 & chart & App. H (highlighting six trading days from 2009 through 2013 when spot and futures prices dropped at the PM Fixing). As a result, there was an average downward bias in intraday returns on COMEX gold futures of 4 basis points (or .04%) around the time of the PM Fixing from 2007 through 2013. Id. ¶ 142 & chart. In Plaintiffs’ view, this demonstrates that Defendants’ downward price manipulation was not merely episodic but had a persistent impact on the gold market from 2007-2013. In 2013, when the major banks came under regulatory scrutiny related to their benchmarking practices, the pattern of downward spikes around the PM Fixing ceased so that the price of gold increased and decreased around the PM Fixing at a roughly equal rate, id. ¶ 124, and the pattern by which Defendants’ price quotes were consistently clustered together at below-market prices around the PM Fixing also began to abate, id. ¶ 254. Plaintiffs claim that the frequency, intensity, and timing of these downward price movements, combined with the facts that (1) Defendants’ quotes correlate with the downward trends and (2) gold prices moved downwards at the Gold Fixing even against upward market trends, leads to a strong inference that Defendants intentionally caused these downward price movements through coordinated price manipulation. Id. ¶¶ 116-57, 250-67. C. Defendants Profited From Manipulating the Fix Price Plaintiffs propose two related theories as to how Defendants profited from their alleged conspiracy to suppress the Fix Price. First, Plaintiffs generally allege that Defendants used their foreknowledge of downward swings in the Fix Price to make advantageous trades across a variety of Gold Investments. While Plaintiffs do not know the makeup of each Defendant’s gold portfolio, id. ¶ 208, they claim that Defendants maintained massive gold holdings, id. ¶¶ 203-05, in particular with respect to COMEX futures contracts, id. ¶ 216, and that the vast majority of the Defendants’ derivative positions were held for active trading, rather than risk mitigation purposes, during the Class Period, id. ¶ 207. Despite individual differences in each of the Defendants’ overall positions, their ability to control the Fix Price allegedly allowed them effectively to “reduce risk” from their gold investments in a way that was ultimately profitable for each of the Defendants individually and for the group as whole. Id. ¶¶ 197-98. For example, Defendants allegedly used their control over the Fix Price to time their purchases and sales of physical gold to buy low and sell high. Id. ¶¶ 14, 230. Defendants also allegedly used their control over the PM Fixing to profit from Fix Price-denominated derivative contracts to which they were parties; by manipulating the Fix Price, Defendants could influence the volume of cash flows between the respective parties in their favor. Id. ¶ 231. Finally, Defendants’ manipulation of the PM Fixing gave them an unfair advantage over counterparties that were not also Fixing Banks by reducing their risk in “digital options” and other contracts with market-based triggers, such as “stop loss” orders and margin calls. Id. ¶ 232. By manipulating the PM Fixing, Defendants were able to trigger (or avoid triggering) such orders or to make margin calls that otherwise would not have been made. Id. Plaintiffs’ second theory is that Defendants were specifically motivated to suppress the Fix Price in order to profit from alleged massive net “short” positions that Defendants held in the gold futures market, including the COMEX market, throughout the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 14, 115, 170. Plaintiffs do not know Defendants’ actual futures positions, but based on Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) reports that compile, in an anonymized fashion, the calls, puts, and futures of all large bullion banks, Plaintiffs allege that, overall, these large banks, in-eluding Defendants, were net short in gold futures and options throughout the Class Period. Id. ¶¶ 210-13. As a result, Plaintiffs argue that the Defendants, along with other large bullion banks, had an interest in suppressing the price of gold. Id. Plaintiffs argue that, even if Defendants were using short positions in COMEX futures for hedging purposes—that is to offset the risk of large holdings in physical gold or other “long” investments—they could benefit from driving the gold price down by cashing in on margin payments because futures are marked to market on a daily basis. Id. ¶¶ 218-221. In support of this theory, Plaintiffs point to the existence of a “statistically significant” correlation between the net short futures positions of all large bullion banks on a given day and the likelihood that the Fix Price moved downward on the same day. Id. ¶ 225. Similarly, they argue, that downward spikes in spot prices around the PM Fixing occurred more frequently on the last trading days of the most active contract months for gold futures on the COMEX, when price movement would have the greatest impact on futures contracts. Id. ¶ 227. D. Regulatory Investigations To demonstrate that Defendants were capable of collectively profiting from illegal manipulation of the Gold Fixing process, Plaintiffs point out that many of the “world’s leading banks” have either admitted to manipulation or have been subject to regulatory penalties for manipulating the LIBOR financial benchmark and for colluding to move markets with respect to foreign exchange (“FX”) benchmarks, despite the fact that each bank had unique interests and positions on which fluctuations in the LIBOR and FX rates had a disparate impact. Id. ¶¶ 18, 304. For example, HSBC and UBS were fined by the CFTC and the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) for manipulating FX benchmarks, and Barclays has also been involved in settlement negotiations for its role in manipulating the FX markets. Id. ¶¶ 235, 304 n.93. With respect to gold, Plaintiffs note that Defendants’ FX desks were “closely related” to their precious metals desks, especially at UBS, id. ¶¶ 241, 99-300, and, therefore, argue that Defendants used the same types of manipulation to drive down gold prices around the PM Fixing as they used to manipulate the FX markets around the FX fixing window. Id. ¶¶ 240-41. FINMA, Switzerland’s financial regulator, has found “clear attempts to manipulate fixes in the precious metals markets” (but not specifically gold), and highlighted collusion among UBS and “other banks” with respect to FX benchmarks. Id. ¶ 19. In addition, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division, the CFTC, the FCA, the Swiss Competition Commission (WEKO) and the German financial regulator BaFin have all launched probes into the Gold Fixing, id. ¶¶ 20, 277, and DOJ and CFTC have investigated all the Defendants and issued subpoenas to at least Barclays and HSBC relating to their precious metals practices, id. ¶¶ 20, 277-78. Plaintiffs acknowledge in the SAC, however, that the FCA and BaFin probes, which investigated only Deutsche Bank, have now been closed. Id. ¶ 277 n.69. During oral argument on the Fixing Banks’ Motion to Dismiss, the Fixing Banks also pointed out that DOJ’s Antitrust Division has also closed its investigation into alleged manipulation of the precious metals benchmarks. Transcript of Oral Argument dated April 20, 2016 (“Tr.”) at 15:13-16:2. While no Defendants have been fined for conspiring with others to manipulate the Fixing, the FCA has fined Barclays, in part based on its finding that “Barclays was unable to adequately monitor what trades its traders were executing in the Fixing or whether those traders may have been placing orders to affect inappropriately the price of gold in the Fixing.” Id. ¶ 284. The FCA highlighted a particular instance in which a Barclays trader purposefully drove down the Fix Price by placing a large fictitious order that he did not intend to execute followed by a large sell order to avoid triggering a digital option contract that would have cost Barclays $3.9 million. Id. ¶¶ 284-88. Alleging that the Barclays trader’s activity was not an isolated incident, Plaintiffs point to press coverage stating that “there has long been an understanding among [bullion banks] that sellers and buyers of digitals would try to protect their positions if the benchmark price and barrier were close together near expiry.” Id. ¶ 292 n.84 (citing Xan Rice, Trading to influence gold price fix was ‘routine,’ Financial Times (June 3, 2014), http://www.ft.eom/intl/cms/s/0/7fd 97990-eb08-lle3-9c8b00144feabdc0. html#axzz3uzm9oKCf). Other regulators and legislative bodies, including the United States Senate, have noted concerns regarding potential “conflicts of interest” between the banks and their clients with respect to the gold and other precious metals markets. Id. ¶¶ 281-82, 302. 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 “[flactual 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, 560-61, 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 Banks argue that, because Plaintiffs fail to allege that they transacted at a specific time in the trading day when the impact of Defendants’ alleged manipulation persisted, Plaintiffs “fail to allege that they ever ‘engaged in a transaction at a time during which prices were artificial,’ ” and therefore have not asserted an injury-in-fact. Defs.’ Mem. at 48 & n.21 (citing In re LIBOR-Based Fin. Instruments Antitrust Litig. (LIBOR II), 962 F.Supp.2d 606, 622 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (emphasis added)). Plaintiffs have, however, alleged that they sold Gold Investments on days when Defendants allegedly manipulated the Fix Price downward, see SAC App. B, and they further allege that Defendants’ downward price manipulation had a lingering effect on gold prices, such that Plaintiffs were forced to sell gold at artificially depressed prices for some to-be-determined period of time after the Gold Fixing. SAC ¶ 222 & chart. While certain Plaintiffs may have actually benefitted from Defendants’ alleged price manipulation (e.g., they may have purchased gold at artificially suppressed prices and sold it 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 specifies as to the timing of certain transactions as inappropriate at the pleading stage); see also Ross v. Bank of Am. N.A., 524 F.3d 217, 222 (2d Cir. 2008) (“The 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 gold 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 LIBOR-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, 459 U.S. at 519, 103 S.Ct. 897, the Second Circuit has held that “a private antitrust plaintiff [must] plausibly [ jallege (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). “[AJntitrust 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 plaintiffs who transacted in LIBOR-dependent financial instruments. 823 F.3d at 772-75. Even though the 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 (even if “LIBOR did not necessarily correspond to the interest rate charged for any actual interbank loan[,] ... [tjhis 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 their Gold Investments at artificially suppressed prices as a result of Defendants’ manipulation of the PM Fixing. SAC ¶¶ 323-26. Because Plaintiffs have alleged that their “loss[es] stem[ ] from a competition -reducing aspect or effect of the [Defendant'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 their 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 151, 161, 2016 WL 4191132, at *7 (2d Cir. Aug. 9, 2016); see also Sanner v. Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, 62 F.3d 918, 929 (7th Cir. 1995) (“[Participants 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 “inextricable] connection]” between futures markets in the United States and United Kingdom). While the Fixing Banks 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 Gold Fixing, which the Fixing Banks define as the only “directly impacted” market. See Letter from Joel S. Sanders to the Court, dated August 16, 2016, Dkt. 149 at 3 (“Even if the Afternoon London Gold Fixing was the means of an anticompetitive conspiracy, only plaintiffs who participated in the Fixing could have standing.”). Even assuming that the Fixing Banks’ argument was properly asserted, the Fixing Banks 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 Banks to set a market-wide benchmark) should be considered the affected “market” for antitrust purposes. While the guiding precedent leaves room for debate as to how the “market” should be defined under the unique circumstances of this case, the suggestion that the alleged conspirators are the only entities with standing to bring antitrust claims relating to the Gold Fixing seems absurd. Here, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants artificially depressed the price of gold for some period of time around the PM Fixing in order to profit from gold and gold 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 pláintiff 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. 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.” Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., No. 12-cv-3419 (GBD), 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 and sales prices for Gold Investments that Plaintiffs sold on days when Defendants are alleged to have manipulated the PM Fixing. SAC App. B. Plaintiffs do not state the quantities, types of investments, counterparties or times at which they sold their Gold Investments, but instead allege that Defendants’ suppression of the Fix Price “directly affect[ed] the price of physical gold, gold futures, and Gold ETF shares, and other Gold Investments,” SAC ¶ 115, causing Plaintiffs to “receive[] lower sales prices than they would have received in a competitive market free of [manipulation],” id. ¶ 324. With respect to physical gold, Plaintiffs allege that they sold gold at “artificial prices proximately caused by Defendants’ unlawful manipulation,” see, e.g., SAC ¶ 29, but do not clearly define the relationship between the Fix Price (which is only set twice a day), spot pricing, which fluctuates throughout the trading day, and the exact prices at which Plaintiffs sold gold during the Class Period. See SAC App. B. Similarly, with respect to gold futures, options and ETFs, Plaintiffs claim that the value of their investments was directly affected by the Fix Price, id. ¶¶ 108-10, 113, 309, but do not specify how pricing of their respective investments varied (or did not) around the Fix Price at different times during the trading day. The Fixing Banks rely on several lines of cases to argue that, regardless of whether Plaintiffs sold physical gold or gold derivatives, their claims are too indirect and remote to confer antitrust standing. First, the Fixing Banks argue that Plaintiffs lack standing because they do not allege that they transacted directly with Defendants and “only direct purchasers of [the] monopolized product[]” have antitrust standing, and Plaintiffs did not transact directly (or indirectly) with the Defendants. Defs.’ Mem. at 32-33 (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 Banks rely on Ill. 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 gold 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 Gold Investments. SAC ¶¶ 105-115. In addition, the Fixing Banks overreach in suggesting that Illinois Brick has been interpreted to deny standing to every plaintiff who is not in direct privity with the defendant. Defs.’ Mem. at 32-33. 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’ anticompetitive 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 Banks 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 33-34 (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 umbrella liability theory has not been resolved in this Circuit. Id. at 778-79. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the viability of the theory 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 transactions with non-conspiring retailers who are able, but not required, to charge supra-competitive prices as the result of defendants’ conspiracy to create a pricing “umbrella.” See, e.g., 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 Defendants rigged the “entire ... market” for gold investments and that all market participants “moved in line” according to Defendants’ price manipulation, leaving little room for any interfering price impact due to the actions of non-culpable entities or exogenous market forces. Pis.’ Opp. at 32-33. 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, which all market participants (buyers and sellers alike) relied upon in trading gold investments across a variety of market fora. 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 gold 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 gold on days when the PM Fixing 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 gold or gold 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 days, SAC ¶¶ 222 & chart, 326, 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, supra, 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 Gold 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 disposi-tive.” (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 ... unremedied.” (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. Except with Respect to Claims Arising out of ETF Sales, Standing Is Not Defeated By the Risks of Speculative Injuries, Duplicative Damages, or 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. Because the PM Fixing occurs only once a day, while gold instruments can be sold OTC twenty-four hours a day and via exchanges that have varying hours of operation all around the world, Plaintiffs cannot deny that other market variables may have affected gold prices before and after the PM Fixing. (Indeed, were it otherwise, pricing across gold markets would essentially be flat, varying only twice a day). 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. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding the frequency and relative intensity of downward price swings that occurred only at the PM Fixing time (but not on weekends and holidays when the Fixing Banks did not meet), SAC ¶¶ 191-93 & chart, are sufficient to permit an inference, at the pleading stage, that the PM Fixing was an event that altered pricing in the various markets in which Plaintiffs transacted. Because the Court finds that the PM Fixing was a price altering event, because exogenous factors affect price movements in most antitrust cases, and because the existence of such factors does not alone defeat standing, questions regarding the extent of Plaintiffs’ injuries 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) (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 plaintiff’s 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 Defendants relating to the 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. 4. Plaintiffs Are Not Efficient Enforcers and Therefore Lack Antitrust Standing with Respect to Their Sales of ETF Shares Defendants argue that Plaintiffs whose injuries arise solely from sales of gold ETF shares are differently situated because their alleged injuries are derivative and duplicative of the injuries suffered by the ETF fund itself. Defs.’ Mem. at 36. Plaintiffs counter that this issue is not ripe for disposition at the pleading stage because ETF funds primarily “buy and hold gold,” so that shareholders, such as Plaintiffs, who routinely sell their ETF shares, are better positioned than the funds to enforce the antitrust claims at issue. Pis.’ Opp. at 35-36. Plaintiffs acknowledge, however, that some ETF funds did sell gold during latter portions of the Class Period, and that, to the extent those funds wished to assert antitrust claims relating to Defendants’ alleged manipulation of the PM Fixing, Plaintiffs’ claims would be duplica-tive. Tr. at 129:13-130:11. The Court therefore agrees with Defendants. Because Plaintiffs’ injuries are derivative of a primary injury suffered by the ETF fund, the Court finds that the ETF funds are the more direct victims, and that permitting Plaintiffs to proceed independently with respect to their ETF claims would create a real risk of duplicate recovery. The Fixing Banks’ Motion to Dismiss is therefore granted with respect to Plaintiffs’ antitrust claims arising from sales of ETF shares, and Plaintiffs’ antitrust claims are dismissed to the extent they are predicated on sales of gold ETF shares. IV. Plaintiffs Adequately Allege an Unlawful Agreement to Fix Prices and Restrain Trade from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2012 Plaintiffs bring claims for conspiracy in restraint of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. “Because § 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 (internal quotations and citations omitted) (alterations in the original). To allege an unlawful agreement, Plaintiffs must assert either direct e