On October 14, 2026, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr. announced the office’s new Corporate Crime and Antitrust Task Force (“Task Force”). This development marks yet another instance in which state-level enforcers have proclaimed a growing commitment to antitrust enforcement.
The Task Force will investigate the “infrastructure of crime” and target the “high-level actors, corporations, and structures that enable and profit from crime,” with a heavy focus on antitrust, healthcare fraud, and consumer fraud investigations. The Task Force will be led by Matthew Bogdanos, a 40-year veteran of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with extensive financial and complex white-collar crime experience. Mr. Bogdanos, a senior trial counsel, will oversee a team of five Assistant District Attorneys and two investigators, all of whom will be dedicated specifically to the Task Force’s investigations and litigations. One of the Task Force’s attorneys, Maia Lichtenstein, previously served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.
Labor markets appear to be a high priority for Mr. Bragg and the new Task Force. In 2023, for example, Mr. Bragg created the first Worker Protection Unit at the District Attorney’s office in order to prosecute wage theft violations. Early reporting suggests that Mr. Bragg will continue those labor-focused efforts through the Task Force, ramping up antitrust investigations into conduct that reduces competition in labor markets like wage-fixing. The Task Force will initially target industries that Mr. Bragg believes are vulnerable to employer collusion, including the healthcare, food service, and retail sectors.
It remains to be seen to what extent the Task Force will work with the New York Attorney General’s Antitrust Bureau, which has significant expertise investigating antitrust cases. Businesses based in or doing business in New York should be aware of the Task Force and its mandate as the antitrust enforcement landscape continues to intensify in the state.
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