Industries & Issues: Private Enforcement

Government cannot be expected to do all, or even most, of the necessary antitrust enforcement; yet, private antitrust enforcement remains under siege. The tort reform movement's corrosive attitude towards class actions seems to have seeped into the courts' antitrust jurisprudence and created unnecessary roadblocks for private antitrust actions that undermine the deterrence and compensation objectives of private remedies.

The AAI believes that private enforcement is generally doing its job: ferreting out antitrust violations that would not otherwise have been exposed, providing significant deterrence beyond the criminal fines obtained by the government in cartel cases, and compensating the victims of antitrust violations.

For an overview of AAI's positions, read the Private Enforcement chapter from AAI's report "The Next Antitrust Agenda." To learn more about private antitrust enforcement, read "Benefits From Private Antitrust Enforcement: An Analysis of Forty Cases" by Robert Lande and Joshua Davis.