In the Eye of the Beholder: Price Structure as Junk Science in Antitrust Class Certification Proceedings
31 July 2008
By Dr. Gregory K. Leonard with former NERA Vice President Dr. John Johnson
There is currently an active debate in the legal community about the appropriate standard to apply to expert testimony in the class certification phase of an antitrust case. While methods such as the use of "visual inspection" to "prove" the existence of a fixed structure to customer prices would not survive the peer review process of any credible economics journal, this type of analysis is being put forward by economic experts in class certification proceedings and is being accepted by some courts. In this article from Antitrust, NERA Senior Vice President Dr. Gregory K. Leonard and former Vice President Dr. John H. Johnson argue that the Daubert standard should be applied to expert testimony in the class certification stage to prevent the use of "visual inspection" and other forms of junk economics.
