Tuesday, May 11, 2021
1. Introduction
Labor market concentration and its potential effects on workers is a topic increasingly debated among antitrust practitioners and academics. The potential link between labor market concentration and lower wages has led to questions of whether and how labor issues should inform merger review and, more broadly, antitrust investigations. Covid-19 has strained some industries (such as airlines) and may result in consolidation of some employers, further raising labor market concentration concerns. This article describes some of the current research regarding labor concentration and its impact on workers, how labor concentration issues are being raised in the courts, and how economic analysis can inform antitrust inquiry moving forward.
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In perhaps the last major legislative action under this presidential administration, on New Year’s Day 2021, Congress passed over President Trump’s veto what could be the most significant anti-money laundering (AML) statute since the Patriot Act of 2001, as part of the annual National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA). Among many changes to the existing AML regime, the legislation creates a new whistleblower reward program, administered by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which resembles similar programs set up in other agencies over the past decade. Those pre-existing whistleblower programs have led to a vast flow of tips from company insiders and outsiders alleging various forms of unlawful conduct, leading to an increase in enforcement actions. The new program similarly provides enormous incentives to report violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U.S.C. § 5311