Authors: Molly Donovan & Aaron Gott A Missouri jury awarded a class of home sellers $1.8 billion dollars in finding that the National Association of Realtors (“NAR”) and some of the nation’s largest real estate brokerages “conspired to require home sellers to pay the broker representing the buyer of their…
Author: Molly Donovan Every spring, the Trooper Girls sell cookies in their town. Although they’re all members of the same group, the girls compete against each other to be the top cookie seller of the season. The girls hold regular meetings with rules set by the troop leader based on…
Author: Steven Cernak So you have been invited to your first trade association meeting. Sounds like fun, right? You get a chance to mix and mingle with others in your industry, maybe swap notes with your counterparts at competitors who face the same pressures you do. What could go wrong?…
The trade association necessitates a delicate balancing act between anticompetitive conduct condemned by the antitrust laws and pro-competitive information-sharing and best practices that ultimately help consumers. Trade associations should have antitrust policies and should consistently consult with an antitrust attorney. Antitrust law reserves its greatest scorn to the horizontal agreements—the…