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Over the past year we’ve reported on several antitrust class actions involving the price-fixing everything from potatoes to SD cards to eggs. Now we’ve learned of yet another price-fixing class action lawsuit involving eggs – human eggs, to be exact.
Lindsay Kamakahi, a human egg donor, sued the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Pacific Fertility Center this week, claiming the groups conspired to fix and suppress the price paid to egg donors in order to “reap anti-competitive profits for themselves.”
Egg donors are paid for the time, inconvenience, labor and discomfort they must go through in order to donate eggs. Even though egg donation is “far more painful and risky” than sperm donation (it requires painful hormone injections, frequent tests and examinations, and surgery), women are paid the same hourly rate as sperm donors. “A price paid for donor services that does not account for those differences must be artificially low,” says the class action lawsuit.
The egg donor class action lawsuit claims the defendants implemented rules that capped maximum prices its member clinics and agencies should pay donors. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine published its maximum price rules for donor services in 2000, mandating that paying donors $5,000 or more would “require justification,” and paying sums above $10,000 “goes beyond what is appropriate.”
These prices have not been increased in over 10 years, Kamakahi says.
According to the class action lawsuit:
“The rates set forth in the maximum price rules were originally keyed to the market rates for sperm donation, i.e., by taking the average price a sperm donor receives for a donation, computing an hourly rate based on that price, and then multiplying that hourly rate by the number of hours it takes for an egg donor to donate eggs. That number was then purportedly slightly adjusted upwards to account for the additional inconveniences of donor services.”
At present, the market for egg donation is largely unregulated by the government.
The egg donor antitrust class action is seeking an injunction prohibiting clinics and agencies from abiding by the price agreements. It further requests money damages from all clinics and agencies that agreed to abide by the price restrictions on behalf of a class of women donating human eggs to these agencies between April 12, 2007 and the present.
A copy of the lawsuit, styled Kamakahi v. American Society for Reproductive Medicine, et al., can be read here.
UPDATE: On Jan. 29, 2016, both parties agreed to a proposed class action lawsuit settlement that would remove the wording that restricts financial award given to egg donors. In addition, the ASRM agreed not to recommend any specific dollar amount regarding donor compensation in the future.
UPDATE 2, July 26, 2016: Egg Donor Price-Fixing settlement details are available here, or visit http://www.eggdonorclassaction.com/ for information.
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UPDATE 2, July 26, 2016: Egg Donor Price-Fixing settlement details are available here, or visit http://www.eggdonorclassaction.com/ for information.
UPDATE: On Jan. 29, 2016, both parties agreed to a proposed class action lawsuit settlement that would remove the wording that restricts financial award given to egg donors. In addition, the ASRM agreed not to recommend any specific dollar amount regarding donor compensation in the future.