Articles Posted in FTC

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Global Antitrust

Author: Jarod Bona

Just because your company isn’t based in the United States doesn’t mean it can ignore US antitrust law. In this interconnected world, there is a good chance that if you produce something, the United States is a market that matters to your company.

For that reason, I offer five points below that attorneys and business leaders for non-U.S. companies should understand about US antitrust law.

But maybe you aren’t from a foreign company? Does that mean you can click away? No. Keep reading. Most of the insights below matter to anyone within the web of US antitrust law.

This original version of this article is cross-posted in both English and French at Thibault Schrepel’s outstanding competition blog Le Concurrentialiste. 

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Antitrust Superhero

Author: Jarod Bona

Some lawyers focus on litigation. Other attorneys spend their time on transactions or mergers & acquisitions. Many lawyers offer some sort of legal counseling. Another group—often in Washington, DC or Brussels—spend their time close to the government, usually either administrative agencies or the legislature. And perhaps the most interesting attorneys try to keep their clients out of jail.

But your friendly antitrust attorneys—the superheroes of lawyers—do all of this. That is part of what makes practicing antitrust so fun. We are here to solve competition problems; whether they arise from transactions, disputes, or the government, we are here to help. Or perhaps you just want some basic advice. We do that too—all the time. We can even help train your employees on antitrust law as part of compliance programs.

Perhaps you are a new attorney, or a law student, and you are considering what area to practice? Try antitrust and competition law. Not only is this arena challenging and in flux—which adds to the excitement—but you also don’t pigeonhole yourself into a particular type of practice. You get to do it all—your job is to understand the essence of markets and competition and to help clients solve competition problems. And in the world of big tech, antitrust is kind of a big deal.

For those of you that aren’t antitrust attorneys, I thought it might be useful if I explained what it is that we do.

Antitrust and Business Litigation

Although much of our litigation is, in fact, antitrust litigation, much of it is not. In the business v. business litigation especially, even in cases that involve an antitrust claim, there are typically several other types of claims that are not antitrust. As an example, we explain here how we see a lot of Lanham Act False Advertising claims in our antitrust and competition practice.

Businesses compete in the marketplace, but they also compete in the courtroom, for better or worse. And when they do, their big weapon is often a federal antitrust claim (with accompanying treble damages and attorneys’ fees), but they may also be armed with other claims, including trade secret statutes, Lanham Act (both false advertising and trademark), intellectual property, tortuous interference (particularly popular in business disputes), unfair competition, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and others.

In many instances, in fact, we will receive a call from a client that thinks they may have an antitrust claim. Perhaps they read this blog post. Sometimes they do, indeed, have a potential antitrust claim. But in other instances, an antitrust claim probably won’t work, but another claim might fit, perhaps a Lanham Act claim for false advertising, or tortuous interference with contract, or some sort of state unfair trade practice claim.

Antitrust lawyers study markets and competition and are the warriors of courtroom competition between competitors. If you have a legal dispute with a competitor, you should call your friendly antitrust attorney.

Antitrust litigation itself is great fun. The cases are usually significant, document heavy, with difficult legal questions and an emphasis on economic testimony. Some of them even involve class actions or multi-district litigation.

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Antitrust-Agency-Call-About-Merger-or-Acquisition-300x199

Author: Steven J. Cernak

It happens all the time.  You read about a merger in your industry, maybe between two suppliers or competitors.  If the merger involves suppliers, maybe your sales rep makes a courtesy call.  You then get back to your business, preparing to adjust as necessary.  A short time later, you get a call.  Some attorney from the Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice Antitrust Division is “conducting a non-public investigation” in your industry and you deduce that it is about the merger.  Is this normal?  What can — or should — you do next?

Relax.  That attorney most likely is just doing her job as part of the Hart-Scott-Rodino merger review process.  She is asking you to play a role in that process.  Most times, your role will be small as you act as a good corporate citizen and, perhaps, learn something about what is going on in your industry.  Still, you will want to seek assistance and take the right steps to ensure that your actions do not distract you from your daily business.

HSR Basics

To determine if a merger is good or bad for competition, the FTC and DOJ need information about the merging parties and the relevant industries.  For most large mergers, they gather that information through the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) process.

HSR requires the parties to submit certain information and documents and then wait for approval before closing the transaction.  The FTC and DOJ then have 30 days to determine if they will allow the merger to proceed or seek much more detail through a “second request” for information.  A second request can take months, often over a year, to play out.  If the agency still has competition concerns at the end of the process, it can sue to block the merger.

Throughout the process, the reviewing agency will reach out to third parties — suppliers, experts, and, especially, customers — for relevant information to help the agency predict the potential effect of the proposed merger on competition.  That is where you come in.

Immediate Next Steps

After you get that call from the reviewing agency, it is a good idea to get with your friendly, neighborhood antitrust attorney.  That attorney can guide you through the process, saving you time in dealing with the agency attorney and helping you understand the specialized language of merger review.  (While covering hundreds of these matters in-house at General Motors, I often said that my role was to use my “automotive to antitrust” decoder ring for the good of both sides.)

At this point in the process, responding substantively to the agency call is voluntary; however, both the FTC and DOJ have processes that they can tap to compel cooperation if they think your information is key to their investigation.  As you will see below, cooperating with the request usually is not too burdensome and can be the better long-term decision.

If it is not obvious from the initial request, you should obtain assurances that this really is a third-party request and you are not the subject of the investigation.  Because HSR filings are confidential, the agency might not be able to explicitly confirm that they are investigating the merger; however, they can confirm if you are a subject of the investigation or merely a witness.

Then, you should do a quick check with the right people in your organization to ensure that there is no reason why the investigation might suddenly turn on you.  Did you recently try and fail to negotiate a merger with one of the companies?  Did you just finish some acrimonious negotiations where one of the companies accused you of acting anticompetitively?

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HSR-Antitrust-Private-Equity-300x200

Author: Steven Cernak

As we detailed in earlier posts (see here and here, for instance), the system established by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR) was designed to get sufficient information about impending mergers to the federal antitrust agencies so they could attempt to block anti-competitive ones before consummation.  The system has grown into a complex set of rules and interpretations.  Earlier this month, the antitrust agencies proposed two changes to those rules, one that would require more information from some acquiring parties and another that would eliminate the filing requirement for certain transactions deemed unlikely to be anti-competitive.

“Associates” Would Become “Persons”

HSR requires a buyer — “Acquiring Person,” in HSR parlance — to provide certain information about the entities it controls and its prior acquisitions for transactions that meet HSR’s reportability standards.  Under the definition of Persons, however, separate private equity investment funds under the same parent fund usually are considered separate Persons because the parent fund did not “control” them.  Therefore, until recently, an investment fund making an acquisition did not need to provide information, including information regarding acquisitions or holdings, about other investment funds under the same parent fund.  Also, currently, an investment fund does not need to aggregate its holdings with those of other funds under the same parent to determine HSR reportability.

In such scenarios, the agencies might not realize that another investment fund under the same parent fund holds interests in competitors of the target entity.  The agencies partially corrected this situation in 2011 by defining such related investment funds as “associates” and requiring the Acquiring Person to disclose holdings of its associates in other entities that generated revenues in the same industries as the target entity.

The proposed rule would go a step further and change the definition of “Person” to include “associates.”  The intended effect of such a change is to require Acquiring Persons to provide even more information about their associates when completing the HSR form.  (Again in HSR parlance, such an Acquiring Person would need to disclose additional information about its associates in Items 4 through 8 of the form.)  In addition, all the holdings of the Acquiring Person in the target entity, even those held by an associate, would need to be aggregated to determine if the most recent acquisition is reportable.

As a result, the agencies should have more complete information to assess the potential competitive impact of the proposed transaction.  For private equity funds structured in this way, the result likely will be additional HSR filings plus the burden to collect, track, and provide additional information in each filing.

Small Transactions Would Be Exempt Regardless of Intent

While the agencies have an incentive to receive filings for all transaction that could pose competitive issues, they also have an incentive to conserve resources and avoid the review of filings for transactions that almost certainly pose no competitive threat.  As a result, the HSR statute and rules have numerous exemptions for transaction types that raise few if any competitive issues.

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Joint-Ventures-Antitrust-300x102

Author: Steven Cernak

On March 24, 2020, the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division issued a joint statement regarding their approach to coordination among competitors during the current health crisis. The agencies announced a streamlining of the usual lengthy Advisory Opinion or Business Review Letter processes for potentially problematic joint efforts of competitors. The statement also confirmed that the antitrust laws had not been suspended and, for instance, price fixing would still be prosecuted.

More importantly, however, the agencies reminded businesses that many kinds of joint ventures of competitors have long been allowed, even encouraged, under the antitrust laws. That message might have been lost in the blizzard of reports and client alerts focusing on the changes to the processes to judge only the riskiest joint efforts. Especially in economic crises, businesses should consider if certain joint ventures with others in their industry, including competitors, might be good for both the businesses and their customers. As explained below, the U.S. auto industry has been using such joint ventures for decades.

Joint Ventures

The term “joint venture” can cover any collaborative activity where separate firms pool resources to advance some common objective.  When that joint activity among competitors is likely to lead to faster introduction of a new product, lower costs, or some other benefits to be passed on to customers, antitrust law will balance those benefits with any loss of competition.  Two specific types of joint ventures—research & development and production—have received particular antitrust encouragement. Below, lessons from both types are explored using examples from the auto industry.

Research & Development Joint Ventures

The FTC and DOJ have described joint R&D as “efficiency-enhancing integration of economic activity” and, generally, pro-competitive. Getting scientists and engineers from competing firms to share data, test results, and best practices on basic areas that each company can then build on to create or improve competitive products can save money and reduce time to market.

GM, Ford and then-Chrysler started doing joint R&D on battery technology and other basic building blocks of motor vehicles in 1990. In 1992, all these efforts were put under the umbrella of the United States Council for Automotive Research or USCAR.  Through USCAR and other joint efforts, these fierce competitors cooperate on technologies like advanced powertrains, manufacturing and materials, and various types of energy storage and then compete on their applications in their vehicles.

Similarly, GM and Ford shared design responsibilities for advanced 9- and 10-speed transmissions. After the cooperating on design, each company then manufactured the transmissions and competed on the vehicles that used them.

Production Joint Ventures

In 1983, GM and Toyota formed a production-only joint venture, NUMMI, to produce vehicles for each parent that were then marketed separately. In 1984, the FTC barely approved the joint venture and insisted on an Order imposing reporting requirements and limits on communication.  By 1993, the FTC had grown comfortable with NUMMI’s operation and so unanimously voted to vacate the Order as no longer necessary given changed conditions.

NUMMI’s success in navigating through antitrust concerns led to other production joint ventures in the industry including a Ford-Mazda one for vehicles, a Chrysler-Mitsubishi-Hyundai joint venture on engines, and a GM-Chrysler joint venture on manual transmissions. None of them were as controversial or received the same level of antitrust scrutiny as NUMMI.

The National Cooperative Research and Production Act

At about that same time as NUMMI’s formation, Congress was clarifying the antitrust laws to ensure that certain cooperative efforts that could benefit consumers were not inappropriately stifled by the antitrust laws. In 1984, the National Cooperative Research Act confirmed that most R&D joint ventures would be judged under the rule of reason. To further encourage such pro-competitive cooperation, the law also allowed the parties to file a very short notice describing the joint venture with the FTC and DOJ. Once such a notice is published in the Federal Register, any antitrust liability for the joint venture and its parents is limited to actual, not treble, damages and attorney fees. In 1993, the law was expanded to cover certain joint production ventures and standard development organizations and retitled the National Cooperative Research and Production Act or NCRPA.

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Vertical-Merger-Guidelines-Antitrust-Agencies-300x176
Authors: Steven Cernak and Jarod Bona

In big antitrust news, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division released a draft of an update to the 1984 Vertical Merger Guidelines (VMG) on January 10, 2020.  Only three of the five FTC commissioners voted to release the draft with Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Rohit Chopra abstaining but issuing separate statements. The agency will accept public comments on the draft through February 11, 2020.

These vertical merger guidelines make extensive references to the Horizontal Merger Guidelines, most recently issued in 2010 (HMG). Like the HMG, the VMG are guidelines only, not law, and are meant to provide the merging parties some understanding of the analysis the reviewing agency will use. Because nearly all merger reviews begin and end with these agencies, however, the HMG have become both influential and persuasive for courts. The VMG rely on the HMG for much of the analysis and so, at nine pages, are much shorter and seem to break little new ground besides updating the outdated 1984 version.

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State-Action-Immunity-FTC-DOJ-300x200

Author: Luis Blanquez

We’ve discussed the state action doctrine many times in the past. The courts have interpreted the federal antitrust laws as providing a limited exemption from the antitrust laws for certain state and local government conduct. This is known as state-action immunity.

In this article, we will discuss how the FTC and DOJ have approached this important antitrust exemption over time. And we are going to do it in several steps. First, we will examine the early stages, with the creation of the State Action Task Force. Second, we will consider the reflections from former FTC Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen on the Supreme Court’s 2015 North Carolina Dental Decision; and the  FTC Staff Guidance on Active Supervision of State Regulatory Boards Controlled by Market Participants. Last, we will spend some time on what is an amicus brief, and will analyze some of the most recent briefs on state action immunity filed by the FTC and DOJ.

You might also enjoy our article on why you should consider filing an amicus brief in a federal appellate case.

  1. THE FIRST STEPS: THE MODERN STATE ACTION PROGRAM

In September 2003, the State Action Task Force of the FTC published a report summarizing the state action doctrine, explaining how an overbroad interpretation of the state action doctrine could potentially impede national competition goals. The Task Force stressed that (i) some courts had eroded the clear articulation and active supervision standards, (ii) courts had largely ignored the problems of interstate spillover effects, (iii) and that there was an increasing role for municipalities in the marketplace.

To address these problems, the FTC suggested in its report that the Commission implement the following recommendations through litigation, amicus briefs and competition advocacy: (1) re-affirm a clear articulation standard tailored to its original purposes and goals, (2) clarify and strengthen the standards for active supervision, (3) clarify and rationalize the criteria for identifying the quasi-governmental entities that should be subject to active supervision, (4) encourage judicial recognition of the problems associated with overwhelming interstate spillovers, and consider such spillovers as a factor in case and amicus/advocacy selection, and (5) undertake a comprehensive effort to address emerging state action issues through the filing of amicus briefs in appellate litigation.

Finally, the report outlined previous Commission litigation and competition advocacy involving state action.

  1. PHOEBE PUTNEY AND NORTH CAROLINA DENTAL

FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health Sys. Inc., 133 S. Ct. 1003 (2013).

In Phoebe Putney, two Georgia laws gave municipally hospital authorities certain powers, including “the power ‘[t]o acquire by purchase, lease, or otherwise and to operate projects.” Under these laws, the Hospital Authority of Albany tried to acquire another hospital. Such laws provided hospital authorities the prerogative to purchase hospitals and other health facilities, a grant of authority that could foreseeably produce anticompetitive results.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed foreseeability as the touchstone of the clear-articulation test, id. at 226–27, 113 S. Ct. at 1011, but placed narrower bounds to its meaning. In particular, the Supreme Court held that “a state policy to displace federal antitrust law [is] sufficiently expressed where the displacement of competition [is] the inherent, logical, or ordinary result of the exercise of authority delegated by the state legislature.” Id. at 229, 113 S. Ct. at 1012–13. “[T]he ultimate requirement [is] that the State must have affirmatively contemplated the displacement of competition such that the challenged anticompetitive effects can be attributed to the ‘state itself.’” Id. at 229, 113 S. Ct. at 1012 (citation omitted)

Jarod Bona filed an amicus brief in this case, which you can read here. You can also read a statement from the FTC on this case here.

North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC Decision

We have written extensively about this case in the blog. Please see here and here.

In a nutshell, the FTC took notice, brought an administrative complaint against the board, and ultimately found the board had violated federal antitrust law. Importantly, the FTC also held that the board was not entitled to state-action immunity because its actions interpreting the dental practice act were not reviewed by a disinterested state official to ensure that they accorded with state policy. The Fourth Circuit agreed with the FTC, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The case centered on whether a state professional-licensing board dominated by private market participants had to show both elements of Midcal’s two-prong test: (1) a clear articulation of authority to engage in anticompetitive conduct, and (2) active supervision by a disinterested state official to ensure the policy comports with state policy. Previous Supreme Court decisions exempted certain non-sovereign state actors, primarily municipalities, from the active supervision requirement. The board argued it should be exempt as well.

The Supreme Court rejected the board’s arguments and held that “a state board on which a controlling number of decisionmakers are active market participants in the occupation the board regulates must satisfy Midcal’s active supervision requirement to invoke state-action antitrust immunity.”

Bona Law also filed an amicus brief in this case, which you can find here.

In the wake of this Supreme Court decision, state officials requested advice from the FTC about antitrust compliance for state boards responsible for regulating occupations. Shortly after, the FTC published its Staff Guidance on Active Supervision of State Regulatory Boards Controlled by Market Participants. The Commission provided guidance on two questions. First, when does a state regulatory board require active supervision in order to invoke the state action defense? Second, what factors are relevant to determining whether the active supervision requirement is satisfied. If you want to read our summary of the guidance please see here.

  1. THE TOOL OF THE FTC AND DOJ: AMICUS CURIAE BRIEFS

An amicus curiae brief is a persuasive legal document filed by a person or entity in a case, usually while the case is on appeal, in which it is not a party but has an interest in the outcome. Amicus curiae literally means “friend of the court.” Amicus parties try to “help” the court reach its decision by offering facts, analysis, or perspective that the parties to the case have not. There is considerable evidence that amicus briefs have influence, and appellate courts often cite to them in issuing their decisions.

As far as the state action immunity is concerned, the DOJ and FTC have published several amicus briefs. Here are some particularly relevant ones:

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State-and-Local-Government-Antitrust-Violations-300x205

Author: Jarod Bona

Lawyers, judges, economists, law professors, policy-makers, business leaders, trade-association officials, students, juries, and the readers of this blog combined spend incredible resources—time, money, or both—analyzing whether certain actions or agreements are anticompetitive or violate the antitrust laws.

While superficially surprising, upon deeper reflection it makes sense because less competition in a market dramatically affects the prices, quantity, and quality of what companies supply in that market. In the aggregate, the economic effect is huge, thus justifying the resources we spend “trying to get it right.” Of course, in trying to get it right, we often muck it up even more by discouraging procompetitive agreements by over-applying the antitrust laws.

So perhaps we should focus our resources on the actions that are most likely to harm competition (and by extension, all of us)?

Well, one place we can start is by concentrating on conduct that is almost always anticompetitive—price-fixing and market allocation among competitors, as well as bid-rigging. We have the per se rule for that. Check.

There is another significant source of anticompetitive conduct, however, that is often ignored by the antitrust laws. Indeed, a doctrine has developed surrounding these actions that expressly protect them from antitrust scrutiny, no matter how harmful to competition and thus our economy.

As a defender and believer in the virtues of competition, I am personally outraged that most of this conduct has a free pass from antitrust and competition laws that regulate the rest of the economy, and that there aren’t protests in the street about it.

What has me so upset?

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HSR-and-Building-300x240

The FTC Headquarters in Washington, DC. The cornerstone to the building was laid in 1937 by Franklin Roosevelt, reportedly using the same trowel George Washington used to lay the cornership of the U.S. Capital in 1793. In the spirit of competition, the National Gallery of Art has set its sights on expanding into the FTC building, and in 2016, the General Services Adminsitration has been investigating the proposal. The FTC has strongly resisted this form of competition for its space.

Author: Steven Levitsky

Under US antitrust Law, parties to certain mergers and acquisitions must prepare what is called a Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filing for the antitrust agencies.

In an earlier article, we mentioned that HSR filings, at least for voting securities and LLC interests, are not triggered by the literal “size-of-transaction” amount.

Instead, they are triggered by a combination of (1) all existing holdings in a target plus (2) what you intend to buy in that target. (In HSR lingo, this is called “aggregation.”) Plus, you need to calculate the total existing holdings across the entire control group. (In HSR lingo, this means all the entities controlled by the “ultimate parent entity.”) When you don’t, you run the risk of being fined $40,654 per day.

Here’s a great example, based on a real-life case. Alpha Fund owns $84 million of Bravo Ltd’s voting securities. Alpha Fund is controlled by Mr. Smith. Because of this control, Mr. Smith is the hedge fund’s “ultimate parent entity,” and he is deemed to “hold” everything in his control group.

Based on his fund’s holdings, Mr. Smith was appointed to the Board of Bravo Ltd. As a board member, he was given stock options for 10,000 voting shares and exercised them. Let’s assume that those shares were worth $50 each, so that the entire option acquisition was only $500,000. This is 0.0059% of the HSR threshold of $84.4 million. But that’s not the way the HSR system works.

What Mr. Smith should have done (or rather, what his lawyers should have done) was combine, or “aggregate,” all his existing holdings ($84,000,000) with the options he was about to convert $500,000). In other words, as a result of his option transaction, Mr. Smith now “held” $85,000,000 of voting securities in Bravo Ltd. But he never made an HSR filing. In this case, the FTC fined him $250,000.

This is actually a simplified version of the real story. In fact, Alpha Fund had previously failed to make an mandatory HSR filing, and had made a corrective filing only later, only proving that it is hard to keep track of acquisitions across a control group. As part of the settlement of the corrective (after-the fact) filing, the FTC always imposes an obligation to create and maintain a compliance program for future acquisitions. The FTC takes the position that a second failure to file proves that the compliance program was not complied with.

By the way, there was absolutely no competitive issue involved in this violation. The control group’s collective holdings in Bravo Ltd. were too low for it to be able to exert any control. Furthermore, Bravo Ltd. granted the options with one single day to exercise them. There was no possibility for Mr. Smith to have made an HSR filing. Despite all these mitigating factors, the fine was imposed simply because there had been an acquisition that required an HSR filing, and no filing was made.

Here’s another complication from the same story. Let’s assume that Alpha Fund bought the shares at $50,000,000, and that over time they appreciated in value to $84,000,000. It’s not clear, but it seems possible that Alpha and Mr. Smith had considered the original acquisition cost of the stock ($50,000,000 plus $500,000). That was another serious mistake, because the HSR rules require you to calculate the current value of your existing holdings. In other words, if your original $50,000,000 investment grows to $85,000,000 through appreciation, you don’t need to do a thing. But you can’t acquire a single dollar more of stock in the same target without making a filing.

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FTC-Appraisal-Case-Fifth-Circuit-Stay-300x200

Author: Jarod Bona

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed on July 17, 2018 to stay the FTC’s Action against the Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board.

The Fifth Circuit’s one-line decision rejects the FTC’s opposition to the Board’s requested stay and allows immediate appellate review of the FTC’s significant state-action-immunity rejection.

You might recall that we wrote about the FTC’s state-action-immunity decision the day it occurred, concluding that then Commissioner Ohlhuasen’s opinion was well-reasoned and thorough.

You can review the documents in the FTC administrative action against the appraisal board here.

This FTC administrative action arises out of allegations that a Louisiana board of appraisers required appraisal management companies to pay appraisers what it described as a “customary and reasonable” fee for real estate appraisal services. The FTC argues that this is illegal price-fixing, which, of course, violates Section 5 of the FTC Act.

What is particularly interesting about this case is that it addresses one of the most significant applications of the active supervision prong of the state-action-immunity doctrine since the US Supreme Court decided NC Dental.

You might recall that, in most cases, entities that want to claim state-action immunity must satisfy both prongs of the Midcal test: (1) the challenged restraint must be clearly articulated and affirmatively expressed as state policy; and (2) the policy must be actively supervised by the state itself.

You can read our analysis of active supervision and related FTC guidance on the requirement here.

As we described in our prior article, Commissioner Ohlhausen effectively addressed important factual and legal issues that make up the active-supervision standard, offering useful guidance to boards and those that challenge them under the antitrust laws.

For example, the FTC applied three elements that it held—in this case—form part of active supervision: (1) the development of an adequate factual record; (2) a written decision on the merits; and (3) a specific assessment of how the private action compares with the substantive standard from the legislature.

While the Fifth Circuit’s stay decision is not good news for the FTC’s current action, it may be good news for state boards and others that want guidance on the active-supervision requirements of state-action immunity.

The Supreme Court’s NC Dental decision offered some parameters of what doesn’t constitute active supervision, mostly from prior cases. But at this point, the law is light on the specifics. A federal appellate decision that fully engages on these issues will help state boards, victims of state boards, district courts, and, in fact, the Federal Trade Commission.

Besides the substantive active supervision issue, this case presents the drama of the Louisiana governor trying to get around the state-supervision deficiencies through executive order in response to the FTC’s initial antitrust complaint. The board argued that the executive order made the FTC’s case moot. The FTC, of course, rejected that argument.

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