The 624 Respondents are users of Valve’s video game platform, Steam. Valve is forced to bring this petition by the actions of Bucher Law PLLC (“Bucher Law”), a small law firm founded by William Ward Bucher IV.1 Looking to build his business, Mr. Bucher engaged in a widespread marketing campaign to convince Steam users to bring antitrust claims against Valve related to Steam. As Mr. Bucher told an investor he was recruiting to fund his scheme, his strategy was to “weaponize[]” an arbitration provision in the user agreement between Valve and Steam users to leverage a settlement from Valve. (Fuchs Decl., Ex. 1 at 3.)2 Mr. Bucher claimed that bringing thousands of arbitrations on behalf of Steam users would force Valve into a settlement without ever reaching the merits of any claims because “[a]ggregating claims makes [Valve’s] entrance fee to just defend [arbitrations] prohibitively expensive.” (Id.)

Steam users were merely pawns in this scheme; Mr. Bucher promised huge returns for a litigation funder willing to front the costs of convincing users to bring claims against Valve, reducing each Steam user to an “acquisition” cost. (Ex. 1 at 5.) Mr. Bucher estimated a “spend of $3.75 million to recruit 75,000 clients at $50 an acquisition” and a “1874% ROI on $6.5 million investment.” (Id. at 9.) The plan was simple: Convince tens of thousands of Steam users to bring claims against Valve, then use their numbers to extort a windfall settlement by threatening Valve with thousands of arbitrations that would cause Valve to incur substantial arbitration fees. Some Steam users noted on public posts that Mr. Bucher was engaged in a “scam.” Others appear to have been misled about what they had signed up for, believing it was a class action or class action settlement that didn’t exist. And some Steam users who were induced to sign up after receiving repeated harassing video content later tried to rescind their participation.