Publications

“Dark patterns” is a term used to describe potentially deceptive app or website designs that could manipulate consumers to make choices they would otherwise not make.

In class action litigation, a court’s decision as to whether a particular class should be certified turns, in part, on the question of predominance. In antitrust class actions in particular, the predominance assessment relies heavily on economic analysis.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers introduce new and improved versions of drugs as part of their research and development strategy. However, concerns about antitrust violations are raised when manufacturers are alleged to use anticompetitive tactics to stifle generic competition.

In the last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken several actions to challenge patents listed in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Orange Book.

On June 6, a motion for summary judgment was granted in In re: Lipitor Antitrust Litigation, dismissing claims of a pay-for-delay settlement from Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of Lipitor, to Ranbaxy.

On April 30, the FTC published updated business guidance concerning multilevel marketers, or MLMs. This 2024 guidance details the current principles and practices that the FTC claims to consider in its assessment of whether an MLM is offering an unlawful compensation structure and operating as a pyramid scheme.

Edgeworth experts Dr. George Korenko and Dr. Tram Nguyen describe FTC actions and recent court decisions and how they affect the recent state of economic analysis of antitrust impact for these alleged patent practices in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are continually focused on investigating the impact of consolidation in healthcare. More recently, the agencies have expressed a renewed interest in for-profit medicine.

In April, the U.S. Department of Labor issued its final overtime rule,under which the salary level for the white-collar Fair Labor Standards Act overtime exemption will be $1,128 per week, effective January 2025.

Edgeworth experts Matt Milner, Sophie Meadows, Ashley Zhou, and Monica Zhong highlight the importance of economic analysis in assessing competitive harm in data-focused industries in the Global Competition Review Data and Antitrust Guide.

The ABA Antitrust Section’s 2024 Spring Meeting panel “Failure to Communicate? Improving Expert Testimony” provided a lively discussion about the evolving role of the expert witness, what makes an effective expert witness, and changing trends in trial procedure that may help streamline expert testimony.

To comply with the Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S. Department of Labor requires that H-2B visa workers, who are employed in less-skilled seasonal work, must be paid at least the prevailing wage for their occupation and work location.

In this piece published in the CPI Antitrust Chronicle, Edgeworth experts Tram Nguyen and Connor Moynihan review recent criminal antitrust cases involving expert witness testimony to highlight the types of economic analyses that were utilized in these matters and discuss the likely increase in reliance on expert economic testimony in the future.

Mike Kheyfets compiled a unique database of over 100 BIPA settlements and studied the evolution of damages issues BIPA litigation cases.  The research, including a look ahead to what the findings may mean for the future, were published today in Bloomberg Law.

Sushrut Jain and Valentina Bernasconi discuss damages estimation in class action suits with allegations of excess "slack-fill" in the packaging of consumer goods.

In this article for the Notre Dame Law School's Journal of Legislation, Edgeworth’s Dr. Steve Bronars and Littler’s Allan King take a closer look at the concept of equal pay, and the application and impact of various equal pay laws in the United States, including state-specific rules and the Equal Pay Act.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) September 8, 2023 Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) increases the standard salary level for the white-collar exemption to the 35th percentile of the pay distribution of full-time, non-hourly workers in the South Census region and imposes automatic updates to the salary threshold every three years.  The automatic adjustments would use the most recent quarterly data from the Current Population Survey to determine the 35th percentile of the pay distribution for full-time non-hourly workers in the South Census region. 

The Department of Labor’s September 8, 2023 Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) increases the salary threshold for the white-collar FLSA exemption.  In the NPRM, the Department explains that the purpose of the salary level test is to serve as an initial screening tool.[1]  It then goes on to downplay the extent to which the new threshold will increase the fraction of white-collar workers who will fail the salary level test by stating “the number of salaried white-collar employes for whom salary would be determinative of their non-exempt status and who earn at least the long test salary level – 3.2 million – is nearly ten times smaller than the number of salaried white-collar workers for whom job duties would continue to be determinative of their exemption status…”[2]