FTC v. Ticor Title Ins. Co., 504 U.S. 621, 11 (1992)

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Cite as: 504 U. S. 621 (1992)

Opinion of the Court

To complete the background, the ALJ observed that none of the rating bureaus are now active. The respondents abandoned them between 1981 and 1985 in response to numerous private treble-damages suits, so by the time the Commission filed its formal complaint in 1985, the rating bureaus had been dismantled. Id., at 195a, 200a, 205a, 208a. The ALJ held that the case is not moot, though, because nothing would preclude respondents from resuming the conduct challenged by the Commission. Id., at 246a-247a. See United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632-633 (1953).

These factual determinations established, the ALJ addressed the two-part test that must be satisfied for state-action immunity under the antitrust laws, the test we set out in California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97 (1980). A state law or regulatory scheme cannot be the basis for antitrust immunity unless, first, the State has articulated a clear and affirmative policy to allow the anticompetitive conduct, and second, the State provides active supervision of anticompetitive conduct undertaken by private actors. Id., at 105. The Commission having conceded that the first part of the test was satisfied in the four States still at issue, the immunity question, beginning with the hearings before the ALJ and in all later proceedings, has turned upon the proper interpretation and application of Midcal's active supervision requirement. The ALJ found the active supervision test was met in Arizona and Montana but not in Connecticut or Wisconsin. App. to Pet. for Cert. 248a.

On review of the ALJ's decision, the Commission held that none of the four States had conducted sufficient supervision, so that the title companies were not entitled to immunity in any of those jurisdictions. Id., at 47a. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit disagreed with the Commission, adopting the approach of the First Circuit in New England Motor Rate Bureau, Inc. v. FTC, 908 F. 2d 1064 (1990), which

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