From Law360:
Egg Donors Get Pay Limits Axed With Antitrust Settlement
By Kelly Knaub
Law360, New York (February 1, 2016, 7:01 PM ET) — A class of human-egg donors who allege the American Society for Reproductive Medicine violated antitrust laws by capping compensation to donors asked a California federal court Friday to approve a settlement requiring the organization to remove the compensation guideline, calling the agreement an “excellent resolution” of the case.
Under the proposed settlement, ASRM will remove language stipulating that “[t]otal payments to donors in excess of $5,000 require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate,” effectively benefiting all women who donate eggs in the future.
. . .
In addition, ASRM will pay a total of $1.5 million under the agreement to compensate the plaintiffs’ counsel for fees and costs incurred in in the litigation, as well as up to $150,000 to cover the costs of notice to the class.
They could have saved that $1.5 million dollars in legal fees if they had listened to me about this back in 2009. :-)
Related posts:
The NY Times Weighs In On Egg Donor Price Fixing
If You Want A Market, Have A Market . . . Otherwise
“Feeble Even By Normal Litigation Standards”
Egg Donor Antitrust Suit In Today’s WSJ
Sunny Samaritans’ Suit Survives
ASRM Seeks Dismissal of Egg Donor Suit
Kamakahi v. ASRM et al. — Updates
Politics And Profits in The Egg Business (When Sunny Samaritans Sue, IV)
When Sunny Samaritans Sue, Part III
Kim, I am curious what you think about the settlement? While removing the offending language from the ASRM documents is a form of relief, and perhaps as much as could be expected from an antitrust lawsuit against the organization, my prior is that most clinics will cling to that old standard in their pricing. Suppose I am right, is there any further relief available in such a case? I guess I am curious about the "shadow" of alleged antitrust violations and what happens if players in a market stick with them after the actual alleged concerted action is over. Curious to hear your thoughts…
Interesting question, Glenn, and you may be right. It will be hard to know (and harder to prove, I suspect), given the lack of pricing data. Of course, this assumes that the price caps were depressing compensation in the first place, another thing we don’t really know. Perhaps going forward new variations on the type of field work done by Rene Almeling could shed some light, at least in terms of whether agency and fertility center professionals continue to talk about donor compensation as if the old guideline prices are some sort of benchmark.