Toxic Cocktail or Essential Device for Protecting Competition: Recent Developments in the Empirical Study of Antitrust Class Actions

In this podcast episode, AAI Vice President of Legal Advocacy Randy Stutz talks with two experts who have led pioneering empirical research into antitrust class actions, Rose Kohles and Josh Davis. Stutz talks with Kohles and Davis about the Huntington Bank and UC Hastings “2021 Antitrust Annual Report: Class Action Filings in Federal Court,” and how empirical research into antitrust class actions might challenge the entrenched views of both tort-reform advocates and class-action proponents.  The three discuss previous efforts at empirical study of antitrust class actions prior to the Annual Report, which is now in its fourth edition (5:00), the type and nature of empirical data that is available and collected in the Annual Report and the role of class-action policy debate in shaping empirical study more generally (10:10), how empirical data may inform new arguments that support or refute various arguments on different sides of class-action debates (17:43), whether empirical data could inform legal arguments or judicial decision-making in court, including in the issuance of fee awards (25:37), whether empirical data might suggest legislative or other class-action reform proposals (32:32), and interesting developments reflected in the most recent edition of the Annual Report, covering data from 2009-2021 (36:54).