State Regulation and the Federal Antitrust Laws

Regulation by a federal or state administrative agency can immunize the regulated activities from the federal antitrust laws in certain situations.However, profound differences exist between immunity resulting from federal regulation, where the issue is congressional intent, and immunity resulting from state regulation, where the issue is federalism.The author analyzes the Parker v. Brown state action exemption and concludes that the decisions of many federal courts have overextended Parker's holding.He then posits a framework for interpretation of these cases, suggesting that it will be useful to the courts in deciding antitrust cases in which state action is an issue.