Adam Biegel, partner in Alston & Bird’s Antitrust Practice, said the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the NCAA’s ban on paying student-athletes violates federal antitrust law is a “stark reminder of the power of antitrust law to scrutinize nearly any economic activity to assess its competitive impact.”
“What constitutes ‘hard core’ antitrust violations is well-known,” said Biegel. “But the facts-and-circumstances approach applied to all other conduct leaves a lot of room for plaintiffs’ lawyers to challenge assumed or apparent procompetitive justifications for conduct, as happened in this case.”
He continued: “That is why any organization — small or large, educational or commercial, publicly traded or privately held, high-tech or low-tech — needs to be vigilant that its antitrust compliance is in tune with legal and market realities.”
“What constitutes ‘hard core’ antitrust violations is well-known,” said Biegel. “But the facts-and-circumstances approach applied to all other conduct leaves a lot of room for plaintiffs’ lawyers to challenge assumed or apparent procompetitive justifications for conduct, as happened in this case.”
He continued: “That is why any organization — small or large, educational or commercial, publicly traded or privately held, high-tech or low-tech — needs to be vigilant that its antitrust compliance is in tune with legal and market realities.”