Eric Posner Writes That 2024 Will Have Further Advances in Labor Antitrust
The Trends and Cases That Will Define US Antitrust in 2024
All eyes are on labor this year.
>>>>
Eric Posner, University of Chicago:
The year 2024 will be marked by further advances in labor antitrust—the application of antitrust law to employer domination of labor markets. Deslandes v. McDonald’s will return to the district court after a rebuke from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In a notable opinion by Judge Frank Easterbrook, the court confirmed that anticompetitive harms to labor markets are governed by the antitrust laws, and that they cannot be traded off against benefits on the consumer side of the market. Deslandes is just one of a group of section 1 franchise no-poach cases that are making their way through the courts. Cung Le, et al v. Zuffa is a Section 2 case against Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed martial arts promoter. The plaintiffs, who allege that the UFC has illegally maintained a monopsony over elite fighters, recently obtained class certification and the case will finally go to trial in 2024, ten years after the complaint was filed. Other Section 2 challenges to sports monopsonies are advancing through the courts, while the NCAA’s model of paying nothing to athletes is collapsing. And the FTC will likely decide whether to challenge the Kroger-Albertsons merger, which, according to unions and commentators, would harm grocery workers in multiple markets if allowed to proceed.
Read more at ProMarket