Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-534_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 16

Cite as:  574 U. S. ____ (2015) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

expense of more overriding state goals.”  471 U. S., at 47. 
Hallie further observed that municipalities are electorally
accountable and lack the kind of private incentives charac­
teristic of active participants in the market.  See id., at 45, 
n. 9.  Critically,  the  municipality  in  Hallie  exercised  a 
wide  range  of  governmental  powers  across  different  eco­
nomic  spheres,  substantially  reducing  the  risk  that  it
would pursue private interests while regulating any single 
field.  See  ibid.   That  Hallie  excused  municipalities  from 
Midcal’s  supervision  rule  for  these  reasons  all  but  con­
firms the rule’s applicability to actors controlled by active 
market  participants,  who  ordinarily  have  none  of  the 
features justifying the  narrow exception Hallie identified. 
See 471 U. S., at 45. 

Following  Goldfarb,  Midcal,  and  Hallie,  which  clarified 
the  conditions  under  which  Parker  immunity  attaches  to
the  conduct  of  a  nonsovereign  actor,  the  Court  in  Colum-
bia  v.  Omni  Outdoor  Advertising,  Inc.,  499  U. S.  365, 
addressed whether an otherwise immune entity could lose 
immunity for conspiring with private parties.  In Omni, an 
aspiring  billboard  merchant  argued  that  the  city  of  Co­
lumbia,  South  Carolina,  had  violated  the  Sherman  Act— 
and  forfeited  its  Parker  immunity—by  anticompetitively
conspiring  with  an  established  local  company  in  passing
an  ordinance  restricting  new  billboard  construction.    499 
U. S.,  at  367–368.    The  Court  disagreed,  holding  there  is 
no “conspiracy exception” to Parker.  Omni, supra, at 374. 
Omni, like the cases before it, recognized the importance
of drawing a line “relevant to the purposes of the Sherman 
Act  and  of  Parker:  prohibiting  the  restriction  of  competi­
tion  for  private  gain  but  permitting  the  restriction  of 
competition in the public interest.”  499 U. S., at 378.  In 
the context of a municipal actor which, as in Hallie, exer­
cised  substantial  governmental  powers,  Omni  rejected  a
conspiracy  exception  for  “corruption”  as  vague  and  un­
workable,  since  “virtually  all  regulation  benefits  some