Cite as: 503 U. S. 258 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
The key to the better interpretation lies in some statutory history. We have repeatedly observed, see Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 150- 151 (1987); Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220, 241 (1987); Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 489 (1985), that Congress modeled § 1964(c) on the civil-action provision of the federal antitrust laws, § 4 of the Clayton Act, which reads in relevant part that
"any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor . . . and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." 15 U. S. C. § 15.
In Associated General Contractors, supra, we discussed how Congress enacted § 4 in 1914 with language borrowed from § 7 of the Sherman Act, passed 24 years earlier.13 Before 1914, lower federal courts had read § 7 to incorporate common-law principles of proximate causation, 459 U. S., at 533-534, and n. 29 (citing Loeb v. Eastman Kodak Co., 183 F. 704 (CA3 1910); Ames v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 166 F. 820 (CC Mass. 1909)), and we reasoned, as many lower federal courts had done before us, see Associated Gen-his business or property' 'by reason of' 'any offense . . . involving fraud in the sale of securities . . . punishable under any law of the United States,' wire fraud, or mail fraud in violation of Section 1962?" Brief for Respondent i (ellipses in original). By thus restating the question presented (as was its right to do, see this Court's Rule 24.2), SIPC properly set the enquiry in the key of the language of § 1964(c), which we hold today carries a proximate-cause requirement within it. What is more, SIPC briefed the proximate-cause issue, see Brief for Respondent 34-36, 38-39, and announced at oral argument that it recognized the Court might reach it, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 31.
13 When Congress enacted § 4 of the Clayton Act, § 7 of the Sherman Act read in relevant part:
"Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other person or corporation by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue . . . ." 26 Stat. 210.
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