State Regulation in the Shadow of Antitrust : FTC v. Ticor Title Insurance Co

In FTC v. Ticor Title Insurance, the Supreme Court denied antitrust immunity to insurers that had participated in state-sanctioned rate-setting activities. Applying the two-part Midcal test, the Court held for the first time that a state agency had failed to "actively supervise" private action under a clearly articulated state policy. In this 1993 article, we propose a theory of state action that accounts for the values that the Court invoked. Under this theory, federalism is a background norm that counsels a narrow interpretation of the Sherman Act to permit state regulation that is not a naked repeal of antitrust rules. Displacement of antitrust is immune if it is ancillary to a positive regulatory program in which state actors control discretion to harm consumers, e.g., by fixing prices