Neil Averitt commentary: Supremes beckon in North Carolina dental case

(November 19, 2013) -- Sometimes opportunity knocks; sometimes it whispers; and sometimes it takes the form of a cert petition from an adverse party. Late last month, opportunity came to the FTC in the form of a petition from the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners. The Board asked the Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuit’s holding that it was not entitled to state action immunity because it was made up of financially-interested industry members, and had not been actively supervised by a neutral party elsewhere in the state government. That holding had suggested that states could no longer cast a gauzy cloak of antitrust immunity over what were basically unsupervised professional guilds. (See FTC:WATCH No. 831, published June 17, 2013) The FTC has until November 29 to submit its response....

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