I would guess that Dutch regulators also take account welfare improvements to other humans , and would not strike down an industry standard for safe food (if the standard actually contributed to safety).
I wouldn’t be so sure. US antitrust authorities have repeatedly struck down pro-safety anticompetitive agreements on the justification that consumers should generally be allowed to make their own price-safety tradeoffs. See my paper that Paul linked. Of course, Dutch antitrust authorities may see it differently, but European and US antitrust analysis are usually pretty harmonized.
Sorry if this is a lame question, but do you think that regulations and standards on ESG that explicitly mentioned animal welfare—something more like soft law, or “comply or explain”, e.g., “companies must disclose animal welfare policies”, or “social and environmental risks include losses due to… animal cruelty”—could be enough to start a change in US antitrust law interpretation on blacklisting products out of animal welfare concerns?
I wouldn’t be so sure. US antitrust authorities have repeatedly struck down pro-safety anticompetitive agreements on the justification that consumers should generally be allowed to make their own price-safety tradeoffs. See my paper that Paul linked. Of course, Dutch antitrust authorities may see it differently, but European and US antitrust analysis are usually pretty harmonized.
Sorry if this is a lame question, but do you think that regulations and standards on ESG that explicitly mentioned animal welfare—something more like soft law, or “comply or explain”, e.g., “companies must disclose animal welfare policies”, or “social and environmental risks include losses due to… animal cruelty”—could be enough to start a change in US antitrust law interpretation on blacklisting products out of animal welfare concerns?