AG expands antitrust reach abroad

It’s interesting to watch what Mike Hilgers’ office will come up with next. Since taking office in January 2023, Nebraska’s attorney general has developed a reputation for joining heavyweight fights, sometimes tinged with a helping of partisan activism. His docket reads like a cross-section of modern politics—federal rulemaking challenges, environmental disputes, and consumer protection suits against high-profile corporations. He’s chalked up some real wins, including a preliminary injunction blocking the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rule, which would have required schools to accommodate transgender students in sports. Alongside those policy cases, he’s pursued consumer and data privacy enforcement against companies like Temu, General Motors and Change Healthcare. Hilgers has proven himself willing to engage in national litigation while grounding his work in issues that matter to Nebraskans, from data protection to campaign finance.

The latest move from his office, however, shows a new front: antitrust. In late October, Hilgers joined four other state attorneys general in warning The Consumer Goods Forum, a global trade association of major consumer-goods companies and retailers, that its coordinated sustainability initiatives might violate federal and state antitrust laws. The letter accuses the forum of orchestrating industry-wide collaboration under the banner of a “circular economy,” particularly through its Coalition of Action on Plastic Waste, which seeks to standardize packaging design, recycling practices, and material use across its member companies. While the Consumer Goods Forum portrays this as voluntary cooperation to promote efficiency and environmental stewardship, the attorneys general contend it could amount to a collusive agreement that restrains trade by dictating uniform market behavior.

The Consumer Goods Forum is not a small player. With roughly 400 members across 70 countries—representing retailers, manufacturers, and service providers with combined sales topping €4.6 trillion—it wields immense influence. Membership grants access to working groups, policy toolkits and international networking, but it also carries expectations: members are encouraged to participate in coalitions and to embrace the group’s mission of “Better Lives Through Better Business.” In practice, that means aligning business practices around a shared set of environmental and social standards. While participation is technically voluntary, the forum’s sheer scale and reputation make its standards hard to ignore. When global retailers and manufacturers agree to adopt specific packaging or recycling norms, smaller competitors and suppliers may feel compelled to follow—or risk exclusion from major markets.

That tension is at the heart of the attorneys general’s argument. Antitrust law exists to prevent agreements among competitors that limit output, raise prices or reduce quality. When an industry collectively decides to redesign products or control supply under the guise of sustainability, it can veer from cooperation into coordination. If the Consumer Goods Forum’s standards become de facto requirements for doing business, they may create barriers to entry, discourage innovation and shift costs to consumers. Voluntary standards can become “voluntary” in name only when noncompliance means losing shelf space or supplier contracts.

Critics of Hilgers’ approach may argue that targeting an international environmental initiative stretches the reach of state antitrust enforcement and risks politicizing legitimate sustainability efforts. After all, most companies participate in the forum to improve efficiency, reduce waste and meet public expectations for environmental responsibility. Yet Hilgers and his counterparts raise a valid question: when does industry collaboration cease to be a public good and start becoming a private cartel? In Nebraska, where manufacturers, packaging firms, and recyclers all feed into national supply chains, those distinctions matter. If global packaging standards drive up costs or squeeze out smaller suppliers, the economic consequences will be felt locally long before they’re argued in court.