When a court evaluates a RICO claim for proximate causation, the central question it must ask is whether the alleged violation led directly to the plaintiff's injuries

In order for a RICO violation to proximately cause an injury, the plaintiff must show that "the alleged violation led directly to the plaintiff's injuries."

Id. "[A] second discontinuity between the RICO violation and the asserted injury" was that the plaintiff's "lost sales could have resulted from factors other than [the] alleged acts of fraud."

"[T] he compensable injury flowing from a [RICO] violation... `necessarily is the harm caused by [the] predicate acts.'"

Under 18 USC § 1964 (c), a civil racketeering plaintiff must show direct injury to his or her "business or property" that was proximately caused by the defendant's RICO violation.

The Court in Allison Engine specifically noted that its reading would "protect the Government from loss due to fraud but also ensures that `a defendant is not answerable for anything beyond the natural, ordinary, and reasonable consequences of his conduct.'"

—holding that the defendant's act of lowering prices was entirely distinct from its alleged RICO fraud of not charging sales tax, which defrauded the State of New York, not the plaintiff, a competitor company of defendant

A RICO plaintiff cannot circumvent the proximate-cause requirement simply by claiming that the defendant's aim was to increase market share at a competitor's expense

"The requirement of a direct causal connection is especially warranted where the immediate victims of an alleged RICO violation can be expected to vindicate the laws by pursuing their own claims."