A federal judge dismissed a class‑action complaint that accused six major academic publishers—Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Sage and Wolters Kluwer—and their trade group STM of conspiring to fix prices and exploit unpaid peer reviewers. The plaintiffs argued publishers' editorial and peer‑review policies functioned as a cartel; U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez said the complaint rested on inferential leaps and lacked direct evidence of an antitrust conspiracy. Plaintiffs led by UCLA professor Lucina Uddin had sought class status for academics who review or submit manuscripts. The ruling preserves publishers' current peer‑review practices for now, but the dismissal may prompt renewed advocacy and legislative scrutiny over scholarly publishing models, profit margins, and compensation for peer review labor.