Antitrust CLE

Antitrust law blends complex, high stakes litigation with economics. You don’t need to be an expert in antitrust law to serve your clients—but you do need to know enough about antitrust law to know when it could be an issue. This course covers the basics of antitrust law, from cartels to mergers.

The federal antitrust laws are a longstanding and overriding national policy in favor of competition that has been affirmed and reaffirmed by Congress time and again, and federal law is the supreme law of the land. But then sometimes it isn’t: states have the power to regulate economic activity, and they sometimes do so in ways that are anticompetitive (and sometimes allow private parties to do anticompetitive things). This course covers the most commonly-implicated doctrines when there is state involvement in anticompetitive conduct.

Professional sports involve a unique interplay between antitrust and labor law. On the one hand, pro leagues have a cartel structure where independent team owners coordinate policies with regard relocation, broadcasting deals and salary controls, their way of doing business raises antitrust questions and poses challenges for courts to determine whether these policies violate antitrust law. In addition, because labor agreements are made by all of these owners through the umbrella of the league, the labor agreements combine aspects of labor law, but also involve the applicability of antitrust exemptions involving their labor agreements. This presentation will focus on the basic antitrust standards, the scope of Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption, the scope of the “rule of reason” test and the scope of the so-called non-statutory labor exemption to antitrust. If there is time, we will review some key provisions of the current labor agreements between Major League Baseball and its players and the NFL and its players.

When we think of criminal antitrust enforcement, we often think of monopolies and widespread price-fixing schemes by behemoth-sized companies. However, over the last few years, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has become increasingly aggressive, particularly as it relates to alleged antitrust violations by employers of all sizes in the labor market. In this discussion of the DOJ’s renewed antitrust enforcement efforts, we will focus on recent cases involving wage fixing, no poach, and non-solicit agreements. Our presenters, who served as defense counsel in the DOJ’s first-ever criminal wage fixing case, will also share lessons that they and their colleagues have learned trying cases against the DOJ’s [markedly more aggressive] Antitrust Division.

In this course, Megan Stumph-Turner of Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice LLC, will take attorneys on an exploration of current hot topics and trends in real estate litigation, including antitrust litigation, litigation involving force majeure clauses in the post-pandemic era, and litigation due to construction delays and cost disputes. By the end of this course attorneys will gain an understanding of potential litigation their clients may face and how to better advise them on avoiding these issues.