California Leads the Charge in Systematically Dismantling US Federal Antitrust Law
The California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) is currently reviewing proposed amendments to the state’s antitrust statutes, particularly the Cartwright Act. As made clear in a recently published memo, a major goal of the effort is clearly to distance California from the perceived constraints of federal antitrust law that limit liability for single-firm conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
California intends to achieve this by strategically overturning specific U.S. Supreme Court decisions and departing from the error-cost framework that has traditionally shaped federal antitrust analysis. The cumulative effect of California’s proposed amendments—but particularly the section on single-firm conduct—would be to align California antitrust law more closely with EU competition law, where dominant firms must actively give a leg up to competitors (see the International Center for Law & Economics’ comments to the CLRC proceeding here and here, and ICLE President Geoff Manne’s August 2024 presentation to the commission here).