Justices to Weigh Antitrust Status of Professional Boards

Stephen Wu suggested that the Supreme Court decided to review an FTC antitrust case against North Carolina’s dental board because “the question that may have come to [the justices’] minds is, ‘This looks like a state regulatory body created by state law, the state seems to have created a mechanism for how members are elected, and yet, we have one of the federal antitrust enforcement agencies and a court of appeals concluding it is nevertheless a private actor.’ Quite a few states have created regulatory boards for a variety of professions beyond dentistry, [and] that may be a broader impact for the ruling in this case.”