Money Brawl: Private Equity Fights Big Investors - Planet Money Blog : NPR

Money Brawl: Private Equity Fights Big Investors - Planet Money Blog : NPR:

"...WSJ reports, at least three big private equity shops have hired lawyers to see whether the pension funds are violating antitrust laws by banding together.

Sure, antitrust laws usually apply to sellers conspiring to fix prices or create monopolies. But apparently, customers (in this case, the private equity firms' investors) can be accused of antitrust behavior as well.

'When customers get together and say we can't get them to lower their prices unilaterally but can only do it collectively, that looks a lot like price fixing,' a law professor told the WSJ."