Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-534_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 10

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

II
 
Federal  antitrust  law  is  a  central  safeguard  for  the
Nation’s  free  market  structures.    In  this  regard  it  is  “as
important to the preservation of economic freedom and our 
free-enterprise  system  as  the  Bill  of  Rights  is  to  the  pro­
tection  of  our  fundamental  personal  freedoms.”  United 
States v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U. S. 596, 610 (1972).
The  antitrust  laws  declare  a  considered  and  decisive  pro­
hibition by the Federal Government of cartels, price fixing,
and  other  combinations  or  practices  that  undermine  the 
free market. 

The Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. 
§1  et seq.,  serves  to  promote  robust  competition,  which  in
turn empowers the States and provides their citizens with
opportunities to pursue their own and the public’s welfare.
See FTC v. Ticor Title Ins. Co., 504 U. S. 621, 632 (1992). 
The  States,  however,  when  acting  in  their  respective
realm, need not adhere in all contexts to a model of unfet­
tered  competition.  While  “the  States  regulate  their  econ­
omies  in  many  ways  not  inconsistent  with  the  antitrust 
laws,”  id.,  at  635–636,  in  some  spheres  they  impose  re­
strictions on occupations, confer exclusive or shared rights
to  dominate  a  market,  or  otherwise  limit  competition  to 
achieve public objectives.  If every duly enacted state law 
or policy were required to conform to the mandates of the
Sherman  Act,  thus  promoting  competition  at  the  expense 
of  other  values  a  State  may  deem  fundamental,  federal
antitrust  law  would  impose  an  impermissible  burden  on
the  States’  power  to  regulate.    See  Exxon  Corp.  v.  Gover-
nor  of  Maryland,  437  U. S.  117,  133  (1978);  see  also 
Easterbrook,  Antitrust  and  the  Economics  of  Federalism, 
26 J. Law & Econ. 23, 24 (1983).

For  these  reasons,  the  Court  in  Parker  v.  Brown  inter­
preted  the  antitrust  laws  to  confer  immunity  on  anticom­
petitive conduct by the States when acting in their sover­
eign  capacity.    See  317  U. S.,  at  350–351.    That  ruling