12.1 Overview

• Library: Virginia Business Torts (Virginia CLE) (2019 Ed.)

12.1 OVERVIEW

The leading federal antitrust law is the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 ¹ (the "Sherman Act") which regulates trade and commerce and prohibits certain concerted conduct as well as monopolization, among other things. The Sherman Act has been amended over the years, the most important of these amendments being the Clayton Act of 1914 ² and the Robinson Patman Act of 1936. ³ Congress also created the Federal Trade Commission through the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 ⁴ and empowered it to regulate unfair trade practices. These federal acts have been on the books for one hundred years or more, and a massive body of law has grown up around them.

Because federal jurisdiction only reaches interstate commerce and not anticompetitive conduct within states, many states, including Virginia, have enacted their own antitrust laws. The major substantive provisions of the Virginia Antitrust Act ⁵ (the "Act") have seen little revision in the last quarter century. Its purpose is "to promote the free market system in the economy of th[e] Commonwealth by prohibiting restraints of trade and monopolistic practices that act or tend to act to decrease competition." ⁶ As the federal courts continue to interpret the interstate commerce requirement of the federal antitrust statutes broadly, ⁷ however, state statutes like the Virginia Antitrust Act have become less relevant and are little used. Indeed...