ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
II. ELEMENTS OF THE OFFENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
A. Agreement to Concerted Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
B. Restraint of Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
1. Per Se Unreasonable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
2. Rule of Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
3. Quick Look . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
C. Interstate Nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
D. Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
III. DEFENSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
A. Withdrawal from Conspiracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
B. Statute of Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
C. Double Jeopardy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
D. Single Entity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
E. Respondeat Superior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
F. State Action Immunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
G. Petitioning the Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
H. Regulated Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
I. Foreign Commerce—Effects, Comity, and Foreign Sovereign
Compulsion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
IV. ENFORCEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
A. Federal Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
1. Section 1 Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
2. Section 2 Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
B. State Enforcement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
C. International Enforcement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
V. PENALTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
I. INTRODUCTION
The Sherman Act
1
protects free-market competition
2
by prohibiting “[e]very
contract, combination .. . or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
1. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7.
2. See, e.g., Brown v. Pro Football, Inc., 518 U.S. 231, 252 (1996) (“The basic premise underlying the
Sherman Act is the assumption that free competition among business entities will produce the best price
levels.”); Nat’l Soc’y of Pro. Eng’rs v. United States, 435 U.S. 679, 695 (1978) (“The Sherman Act reflects a
legislative judgment that ultimately competition will produce not only lower prices, but also better goods and
services.”).
395
the several States, or with foreign nations.”
3
Despite the broad language of the
Sherman Act, courts have consistently held that § 1 prohibits only “unreasonable”
restraints of trade.
4
Congress delegated to the courts the task of distinguishing between criminal and
civil violations of the Sherman Act
5
and interpreting both classes of violations
with extensive federal common law.
6
Courts consistently refer to the breadth of the
Sherman Act and note that Congress expected courts to shape the broad language
of § 1 by creating a common law of antitrust.
7
The Sherman Act includes sev-
eral common law terms to assist courts in determining whether the Act has
been violated.
8
Some commentators, however, have questioned the use of “unelabo-
rated common law words” in the Sherman Act.
9
The debate centers on whether
Congress intended to define special classes of prohibited conduct or intended
courts to interpret the statute using “certain customary techniques of judicial
reasoning, [for example, to] consider the reasoning and results of other com-
mon-law courts, and develop, refine, and innovate in the dynamic common-law
tradition.”
10
Case-by-case adjudication facilitates the common law approach to
antitrust. Just as common law evolves, the Sherman Act evolves to meet current
economic conditions.
11
3. 15 U.S.C. § 1.
4. See, e.g., Leegin Creative Leather Prods., Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877, 885 (2007) (“[T]he Court has
repeated time and again that § 1 ‘outlaw[s] only unreasonable restraints.’” (quoting State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522
U.S. 3, 10 (1997))); Nat’l Soc’y of Pro. Eng’rs, 435 U.S. at 687–88 (1978) (explaining Congress intended The
Sherman Act to prohibit only unreasonable restraints and that the literal language of § 1 would outlaw the
entirety of private contract law because “restraint is the very essence of every contract”).
5. See PHILLIP E. AREEDA & HERBERT HOVENKAMP, ANTITRUST LAW §§ 303b4–f (4th ed. 2014) [hereinafter
AREEDA & HOVENKAMP] (differentiating between criminal and civil antitrust cases).
6. See id.
7. See, e.g., Leegin, 551 U.S. at 899 (“[T]he Court has treated the Sherman Act as a common-law statute.”);
Nat’l Soc’y of Pro. Eng’rs, 435 U.S. at 688 (“Congress ...did not intend the text of the Sherman Act to delineate
the full meaning of the statute or its application in concrete situations.”); see also A
REEDA & HOVENKAMP, supra
note 5, § 104 (discussing the development of antitrust common law).
8. See Marc Winerman, The Origins of the FTC: Concentration, Cooperation, Control, and Competition, 71
ANTITRUST L.J. 1, 9–11 (2003) (discussing the evolution of early Sherman Act jurisprudence through the
Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Act’s common law terms); Rudolph J. Peritz, The “Rule of Reason” in
Antitrust Law: Property Logic in Restraint of Competition, 40 HASTINGS L.J. 285, 304 (1989) (noting Senator
Edmunds, a proponent of the Sherman Act, recognized “‘monopoly’ is a technical term known to the common
law”).
9. See PHILLIP E. AREEDA & LOUIS KAPLOW, ANTITRUST ANALYSIS 43–44 (5th ed. 1997) [hereinafter AREEDA
& KAPLOW]; Margaret H. Lemos, Interpretive Methodology and Delegations to Courts: Are “Common-Law
Statutes” Different?, in INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE COMMON LAW 89, 94–95 (Shyamkrishna Balganesh
ed., 2013) (analyzing the implications of the judicial freedoms afforded by common law statutes).
10. AREEDA & KAPLOW, supra note 9, at 44.
11. See Kimble v. Marvel Ent., LLC, 576 U.S. 446, 461 (2015) (noting Congress’s intent for the Sherman Act
to contemplate the changing nature of the economy and thus allowing courts to evolve their antitrust analyses);
Leegin, 551 U.S. at 899–900 (explaining in context of the Sherman Act, stare decisis constrains the Court to a
lesser degree than it ordinarily would).
396 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 61:395
This Article focuses on criminal antitrust law.
12
Section II outlines the four ele-
ments of a criminal antitrust violation under § 1 of the Sherman Act. Section III
enumerates several defenses to antitrust claims. Section IV discusses federal, state,
and international enforcement. Finally, Section V explains the penalties for crimi-
nal violations.
II. ELEMENTS OF THE OFFENSE
The prosecution, or plaintiff in a civil case, must establish three elements to prove
a violation of § 1: (A) an agreement, knowingly formed, to concerted action, such
as a combination or conspiracy formed by two or more entities;
13
(B) the agreement
unreasonably restrained trade or commerce;
14
and (C) the restrained trade or com-
merce is interstate or international in nature.
15
In a criminal antitrust prosecution,
the government also generally has to prove the requisite state of mind—that the
defendant intended to engage in unlawful agreement or conspiracy.
16
Parts A
through D of this Section discuss each of these elements.
A. Agreement to Concerted Action
Under § 1 of the Sherman Act, an agreement to concerted action includes con-
spiracy.
17
For purposes of § 1, a conspiracy exists when two or more competitors
or potential competitors come to an agreement, understanding, or meeting of the
minds.
18
The mere existence of the illegal agreement is the offense; accordingly,
neither ultimate success nor overt acts furthering the conspiracy must be pleaded
12. The DOJ has the power to prosecute criminal violations under the Sherman Act, Robinson-Patman Act,
and Clayton Act. “[C]riminal prosecution in general and imprisonment in particular have been confined to
instances of outrageous conduct of undoubted illegality.” AREEDA & HOVENKAMP, supra note 5, § 303b2.
13. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554–57 (2007) (“[P]roof of a § 1 conspiracy must include
evidence tending to exclude the possibility of independent action.”); Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Serv. Corp.,
465 U.S. 752, 768 (1984) (explaining “conscious commitment to a common scheme designed to achieve an
unlawful objective” constitutes requisite agreement).
14. See Leegin, 551 U.S. at 885; see also Arizona v. Maricopa Cnty. Med. Soc’y, 457 U.S. 332, 342–43
(1982) (explaining the use of the rule of reason to assess reasonableness); NCAA v. Alston, 141 S. Ct. 2141,
2161 (2021) (“[T]o know that the Sherman Act prohibits only unreasonable restraints of trade is thus to know
that attempts to ‘meter’ small deviations is not an appropriate antitrust function.” (quoting Herbert Hovenkamp,
Antitrust Balancing, 12 N.Y.U. J.L. & BUS. 369, 377 (2016))).
15. See 15 U.S.C. § 1; United States v. Peake, 804 F.3d 81, 97 (1st Cir. 2015); Gulf Coast Hotel-Motel Ass’n
v. Miss. Gulf Coast Golf Course Ass’n, 658 F.3d 500, 504 (5th Cir. 2011); United States v. Giordano, 261 F.3d
1134, 1138 (11th Cir. 2001).
16. See United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 435 (1978) (holding that proof of the defendant’s
state of mind or intent is an element of a criminal antitrust offense); United States v. Nippon Paper Indus. Co.,
109 F.3d 1, 6–7 (1997) (“[T]he Gypsum Court held that criminal intent generally is required to convict under the
[Sherman] Act.”).
17. See Am. Needle, Inc., v. Nat’l Football League, 560 U.S. 183, 190 (2010) (“The meaning of the term
‘contract, combination .. ., or conspiracy’ is informed by the ‘basic distinction’ in the Sherman Act ‘between
concerted and independent action . . . .’” (quoting Copperweld Corp. v. Indep. Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752, 767
(1984))).
18. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557; Primetime 24 Joint Venture v. Nat’l Broad. Co., 219 F.3d 92, 103 (2d Cir.
2000) (holding the conspiracy element is only satisfied if there is “a combination or some form of concerted
2024] ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS 397
