the statutes’ effort to impose a roughly equivalent cost on NPMs to that borne by manufacturers participating in the MSA can be analogized to the imposition of a flat tax. A tax increase, like any cost, will likely be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, but where, as here, the state alone imposes the increased cost, there is no private collusion implicating the antitrust laws. See Freedom Holdings VI, 592 F.Supp.2d at 699 (citing Freedom Holdings I, 357 F.3d at 229, and Freedom Holdings II, 363 F.3d at 152). That competitors respond in similar ways to a tax they must all pay does not, by itself, manifest an agreement proscribed by the Sherman Act. See Brooke Grp. Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U.S. 209, 227, 113 S.Ct. 2578, 125 L.Ed.2d 168 (1993) (<HOLDING>); Williamson Oil Co. v. Philip Morris U.S.A.,
holding in part that a convicted defendant is not entitled to raise in a posteonviction proceeding any matter which he raised on direct appeal or which he knew about but did not raise in his direct appeal holding that tacit collusion of participants in oligopolistic market to raise prices in response to higher costs is not in itself unlawful holding that possession of a weapon is not in an of itself a crime holding that because original interception was not unlawful subsequent use by prosecutor could not be found unlawful recognizing that a conspiracy to maintain prices could in theory impact the entire class despite a decrease in prices for some customers in parts of the class period and despite some divergence in the prices different plaintiffs paid