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AB 1345

Cartwright Act: restraint of trade.

2025-2026 Regular Session Introduced by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan

AB 1345 expands CA Cartwright Act to ban monopolies and monopsonies, broadening criminal liability for anticompetitive labor-market conduct and protecting workers and competition.

From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56.
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Bill Summary · AB 1345

AB 1345 — Cartwright Act: restraint of trade (Bauer-Kahan)

Status: Re-referred to Committee on Judiciary (Apr 8, 2025)
Introduced: Feb 21, 2025

Purpose / Intent

AB 1345 amends California’s Cartwright Act antitrust framework to broaden and clarify what constitutes unlawful restraints of trade and to expressly prohibit monopolization and monopsonization (and related attempts, maintenance, combinations, or conspiracies). The bill emphasizes protecting competition in labor markets — including workers’ freedom to choose employment — and targets conduct by dominant firms that harms workers, consumers, and small businesses.

Key provisions

  • Adds a new Section 16720.1 to the Business and Professions Code.
    • Makes it unlawful for one or more persons to “act, cause, take, or direct a measure, action, or event” that:
    • Is in restraint of trade or attempts to restrain the free exercise of competition or freedom of trade or production; or
    • Monopolizes or monopsonizes, attempts to monopolize or monopsonize, maintains a monopoly or monopsony, or combines or conspires with another person to do so in any part of trade or commerce.
    • Specifies that “restraint of trade” includes actions cognizable under existing Section 16720, whether performed by one or more persons.
  • Includes legislative findings declaring labor-market competition as a component of consumer welfare and the need for strong antitrust definitions and prohibitions.
  • Makes nonsubstantive revisions to the Business and Professions Code caption.
  • Fiscal/legal note: Because the bill expands conduct punishable as a crime under the Cartwright Act, it creates a state-mandated local program. However, it declares no state reimbursement required under California Constitution Article XIII B (Section 6) because the costs arise from creating/changing a crime or its definition.

Who is affected

  • Employers, dominant purchasers of labor (potentially subject to monopsony liability), large corporations, and other business actors whose conduct could be viewed as restraining competition or creating monopoly/monopsony power.
  • Workers and consumers could gain broader protection against anticompetitive labor-market conduct (e.g., no-poach or wage-fixing arrangements).
  • Enforcement actors: Attorney General/Department of Justice, and potentially local prosecutors if criminal penalties are pursued.
  • Local agencies may face indirect effects due to changed criminal enforcement duties (not reimbursed per the bill).

Procedural timeline / next steps

  • Introduced Feb 21, 2025; read first time Feb 24; printed Feb 22.
  • Amended in committee and re-referred to Judiciary (Apr 7–8, 2025).
  • Next likely steps: Judiciary Committee hearings, possible further amendments, and floor consideration.

Practical implications / issues to watch

  • The bill clarifies and potentially broadens criminal liability for anticompetitive conduct, notably by naming monopsony explicitly.
  • Enforcement consequences (criminal vs. civil remedies), penalty levels, and interaction with existing Cartwright Act case law will be central in implementation and litigation.
  • Stakeholder impact: businesses may reassess hiring practices (e.g., no-poach agreements), mergers, and buyer-side conduct; worker advocates may press for vigorous enforcement.

Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.

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