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14 

NORTH CAROLINA STATE BD. OF DENTAL
EXAMINERS v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

pants are more similar to private trade associations vested 
by  States  with  regulatory  authority  than  to  the  agencies 
Hallie considered.  And as the Court observed three years 
after Hallie, “[t]here is no doubt that the members of such
associations  often  have  economic  incentives  to  restrain 
competition  and  that  the  product  standards  set  by  such
associations  have  a  serious  potential  for  anticompetitive 
harm.”  Allied  Tube,  486  U. S.,  at  500.    For  that  reason, 
those associations must satisfy Midcal’s active supervision 
standard.  See Midcal, 445 U. S., at 105–106. 

The  similarities  between  agencies  controlled  by  active 
market participants and private trade associations are not 
eliminated  simply  because  the  former  are  given  a  formal
designation  by  the  State,  vested  with  a  measure  of  gov­
ernment  power,  and  required  to  follow  some  procedural 
rules.  See Hallie, supra, at 39 (rejecting “purely formalis­
tic”  analysis).  Parker  immunity  does  not  derive  from
nomenclature  alone.  When  a  State  empowers  a  group  of
active  market  participants  to  decide  who  can  participate 
in its market, and on what terms, the need for supervision 
is manifest.  See Areeda & Hovencamp ¶227, at 226.  The 
Court  holds  today  that  a  state  board  on  which  a  control­
ling  number  of  decisionmakers  are  active  market  partici­
pants  in  the  occupation  the  board  regulates  must  satisfy 
Midcal’s active supervision requirement in order to invoke
state-action antitrust immunity. 

D 
The State argues that allowing this FTC order to stand
will  discourage  dedicated  citizens  from  serving  on  state 
agencies that regulate  their own occupation.   If this were 
so—and, for reasons to be noted, it need not  be so—there 
would be some cause for concern.  The States have a sov­
ereign  interest  in  structuring  their  governments,  see 
Gregory  v.  Ashcroft,  501  U. S.  452,  460  (1991),  and  may 
conclude  there  are  substantial  benefits  to  staffing  their