By:  Barrientos                                        S.B. No. 881
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to authorizing the Attorney General to bring an action to
    1-2  recover damages sustained, either directly or indirectly, by
    1-3  persons or governmental entities attributable to conduct declared
    1-4  unlawful by the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act, and
    1-5  matters related thereto.
    1-6        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-7        SECTION 1.  The Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act, Tex.
    1-8  Bus. & Com. Code Ann. Sec. 15.21, is amended to add the following
    1-9  subsection to read as follows:
   1-10        (d)  SUITS ON BEHALF OF INDIRECT PURCHASERS.
   1-11              (1)  The Attorney General may bring a civil suit to
   1-12  recover damages on behalf of any person or governmental entity,
   1-13  including the State of Texas and any of its political subdivisions
   1-14  or tax supported institutions, whose business or property has been
   1-15  injured, either directly or indirectly, by any conduct declared
   1-16  unlawful in Subsection (a), (b), or (c) of Section 15.05 of this
   1-17  Act, and, if successful, shall recover any actual damages sustained
   1-18  by such person or governmental entity.
   1-19              (2)  In any action under this section, any defendant
   1-20  shall be entitled to prove as a partial or complete defense to a
   1-21  claim for damages that the illegal overcharge has been passed on to
   1-22  others who are themselves entitled to recover so as to avoid
   1-23  duplication of recovery of damages.
    2-1              (3)  In any case in which claims are asserted by both
    2-2  direct purchasers and the Attorney General on behalf of indirect
    2-3  purchasers, the court shall take all actions necessary to avoid
    2-4  multiplicity of suits and duplication of damages, including the
    2-5  consolidation and/or transfer of and and/or all actions relating to
    2-6  the same injury.
    2-7        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
    2-8        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-9  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-10  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-11  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-12  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.