Free-market (think tank) merger

Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) announced a merger. CEI is one of D.C.'s most aggressive and innovative free-market policy shops. CCAF aggressively polices the terms of class-action settlements, which too often look like collusive arrangements that enrich attorneys while doing little for the putative plaintiffs.

The most likely effect of this merger will be to enhance the two groups' public interest litigation efforts, which are already significant. CEI has quarterbacked cases such as Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, King v. Burwell and challenges to the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, and regularly files amicus briefs in regulatory cases. Bringing CCAF's legal team aboard, led by CCAF founder Ted Frank, will undoubtedly enhance these efforts. The combined organization will retain the CEI name, and Frank has been named a CEI senior attorney and director of the Center for Class Action Fairness within CEI.

As a former CEI staffer (from 1991 to 2000), I wish the new organization well in its efforts (even if I continue to disagree with it on some issues <cough> climate change <cough>).