634
Opinion of the Court
policies, as distinct from allowing private parties to foreclose competition, in the following passage:
"The active supervision requirement stems from the recognition that where a private party is engaging in the anticompetitive activity, there is a real danger that he is acting to further his own interests, rather than the governmental interests of the State. . . . The requirement is designed to ensure that the state-action doctrine will shelter only the particular anticompetitive acts of private parties that, in the judgment of the State, actually further state regulatory policies. To accomplish this purpose, the active supervision requirement mandates that the State exercise ultimate control over the challenged anticompetitive conduct. . . . The mere presence of some state involvement or monitoring does not suffice. . . . The active supervision prong of the Midcal test requires that state officials have and exercise power to review particular anticompetitive acts of private parties and disapprove those that fail to accord with state policy. Absent such a program of supervision, there is no realistic assurance that a private party's anticompetitive conduct promotes state policy, rather than merely the party's individual interests." 486 U. S., at 100-101 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Because the particular anticompetitive conduct at issue in Patrick had not been supervised by governmental actors, we decided that the actions of the peer review committee were not entitled to state-action immunity. Id., at 106.
Our decisions make clear that the purpose of the active supervision inquiry is not to determine whether the State has met some normative standard, such as efficiency, in its regulatory practices. Its purpose is to determine whether the State has exercised sufficient independent judgment and control so that the details of the rates or prices have been established as a product of deliberate state intervention, not
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