Foreword

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FOREWORD

The Section of Antitrust Law of the American Bar Association

presents the Antitrust and Associations Handbook. This Handbook

updates and expands substantially the Section’s antitrust practice guide,

published in 1996, entitled Antitrust & Trade Associations: How Trade

Regulation Laws Apply to Trade and Professional Associations. This

Handbook is designed to serve as a general and accessible guide to the

application of U.S. federal and state antitrust laws to the activities of

trade and professional associations. It does not address enforcement

regimes or potential issues arising under the competition laws of other

jurisdictions. The Handbook begins with a discussion of basic antitrust

principles and the system of public and private remedies for violations,

before turning to more detailed treatment of the analytical framework

applicable to collaborative activities involving competitors. Subsequent

chapters provide in-depth discussion of topics and problems that are

routinely encountered by practitioners counseling trade associations,

including membership criteria and expulsion, information collection and

dissemination, industry codes of ethics, standards development, and joint

petitioning of the government. This Handbook should be an invaluable

single-volume resource for those advising trade associations.

The Handbook was drafted under the auspices of the Trade, Sports

& Professional Associations Committee, whose leadership and steady

support brought it to fruition. The Section of Antitrust Law expresses its

particular gratitude to the co-editors Christopher J. MacAvoy and Saul P.

Morgenstern, and to their team of contributing authors, who devoted

long hours of painstaking effort and who are identified in the Preface.

We are grateful as well to the Books and Treatises Committee for their

editorial expertise and guidance throughout the drafting process.

February 2009 James A. Wilson

Chair, Section of Antitrust Law

American Bar Association

2008-09