Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Parker And Usery: Portended Constitutional Limits On The Federal Interdiction Of Anticompetitive State Action, Mark L. Davidson, Robert D. Butters

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article examines in detail the policies underlying these recent Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Sherman Act and shows that they have equal applicability to FTC enforcement of the Clayton and FTC Acts. The Article identifies the factual criteria used by the courts for distinguishing state and private conduct that is subject to the antitrust laws, and to congressional commerce dictates, from sovereign state regulatory conduct that is immune from antitrust sanction. The Article then focuses on the impact of Usery, which provides constitutional support for the so-called state action doctrine that was originated in Parker v. Brown. Finally, we …

Book Reviews, George A. Hay, H. Michael Mann, Teresa Amott

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews:

The Antitrust Penalties: A Study in Law and Economics By Kenneth G. Elzinga and William Breit

Reviewed by George A. Hay

The Antitrust Penalties was published in 1976. Its main mes-sage is that the only efficient antitrust penalty is a heavy fine and that incarceration comes out poorly by any benefit-cost standard.Later that year, in a celebrated and possibly unprecedented appearance, newly appointed Assistant Attorney General Donald I. Baker argued before a federal district judge that jail sentences were the appropriate penalty for a group of defendants who had just been convicted in one of the major price-fixing …