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ORCID

Zofia Maria Mazur – 0000-0002-0493-1545

Keywords

Monopsony power, labor market, competition law, disgorgement of profits, remedies, sanctions, unjust enrichment

Abstract

Although thousands of reported cases involve allegations of firms illegally forming cartels in product markets, relatively few deal with similar allegations in labor markets. Moreover, as observed in legal doctrine, labor markets tend to be more concentrated than product markets and, consequently, more susceptible to anticompetitive conducts by undertakings. The article, therefore, analyzes the so-called monopsony power in the labor market, which refers to any case where employers hold labor market power that allows them to unilaterally determine wages or to worsen working conditions by reducing employment.

It is argued that competition law should be used to effectively curb abuse of monopsony in labor markets, which should be policed just as it polices product markets. Applying competition law to labor markets can offer an effective tool to restraint monopsony power without substantially amending existing labor and employment law. However, other potential legal remedies and sanctions applicable to monopsony collusion are also considered, with particular attention to the disgorgement of profits.

Acknowledgements

Funding

This article received no funding

Declaration of Conflict of interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Declaration about the scope of AI utilisation

The author did not use AI tools in the preparation of this article.

Page Count

23

Received Date

5.03.2025

Accepted Date

10.10.2025

DOI

10.7172/1689-9024.YARS.2025.18.31.2

JEL Code

K15, K21, K31, L40

Publisher

University of Warsaw

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