(For context, I’m a lawyer who’s worked a lot on issues related to antitrust and AI safety.)
These entities are funded by very close and coordinated sources of funds
There is such a thing as the “single entity defense,” but it almost certainly would not apply in this context. The orgs are legally and functionally separate entities.
The “cartel” actually has to create economic harm, and this might require a natural marketplace for employees that is being undermined. If the funders and all the execs created the entire marketplace (e.g. think of many EA cause areas), that’s harder to say they are unfairly benefitting.
. . .
The EA community or funders gathered together and demanded lower/higher salaries or other norms.
The best theory would be that employees are being harmed by anticompetitive fixing of the prices of their employment. That the funders or “community” want the salaries to be lower does not negate the impact on the workers, and so is not relevant to the claim.
However, it may be less legally risky (in the US) for funders to impose (common) salary caps on the downstream orgs that they fund as a condition of funding. Major cases on-point: State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3 (1997); Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977); Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007).
(For context, I’m a lawyer who’s worked a lot on issues related to antitrust and AI safety.)
There is such a thing as the “single entity defense,” but it almost certainly would not apply in this context. The orgs are legally and functionally separate entities.
The best theory would be that employees are being harmed by anticompetitive fixing of the prices of their employment. That the funders or “community” want the salaries to be lower does not negate the impact on the workers, and so is not relevant to the claim.
However, it may be less legally risky (in the US) for funders to impose (common) salary caps on the downstream orgs that they fund as a condition of funding. Major cases on-point: State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3 (1997); Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977); Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007).