An antitrust class action filed in Brooklyn federal court accuses elite journal publishers of exploiting the volunteer work of peer reviewers through an anticompetitive scheme to “maximize their profits and maintain their market dominance” in violation of the Sherman Act.

The world’s six largest publishers of academic journals, including Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons Inc., have “engaged in an illegal conspiracy” that “coerced peer reviewers into working for free,” according to the allegations in the complaint.