Conformal gravity is an "alternative" theory of gravity, where instead of using the Einstein-Hilbert action composed of the Ricci scalar, the square of the conformal Weyl tensor is used. It was originally designed to arrive at the inflationary cosmological models without the use of dark energy.
However, it was later noticed that the galactic rotation curves of a certain matter distribution commonly seen in galaxies can also be accurately predicted using the conformal gravity and without the use of dark matter, but where in addition to total luminosity of the galaxy and its mass used in the matter distribution, two new constants appear. However, both of the constants turn out to be universal and are found to be equal for all galaxies (within the errors permitted by the deviation from the assumed baryonic matter distribution).
A while ago it was widely reported that the Bullet Cluster lensing effects rule out the alternative theories of gravity and provide evidence for dark matter. Does conformal gravity sufficiently explain the lensing effects observed in Bullet Cluster or is it similarly ruled out?
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