786
Souter, J., concurring in judgment
3269, and H. R. 3270 before the Subcommittees of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 335 (1943) (statement of Edward L. Williams, President, Insurance Executives Association) ("[T]he companies that want to come into the Interstate Underwriters Board can come in there. I do not know of any company that is turned down"). Thus, presumably, the refusals to deal orchestrated by the defendants would cease if the targets agreed to join the association and abide by its terms. See post, at 801 ("The refusal to deal may . . . be conditional" (emphasis omitted)).
Third, contrary to petitioners' contentions, see Brief for Petitioners in No. 91-1111, pp. 32, n. 14, 34, 38-39, a § 3(b) boycott need not entail unequal treatment of the targets of the boycott and its instigators. Some refusals to deal (those, perhaps, which are alleged to violate only § 2 of the Sherman Act 15) may have as their object the complete destruction of the business of competitors; these may well involve unconditional discrimination against the targets. Other refusals to deal, however, may seek simply to prevent competition as to the price or features of the product sold; and these need not depend on unequal treatment of the targets. Assuming,
holding in South-Eastern Underwriters that the business of insurance was interstate commerce and thus subject generally to federal regulation under the Commerce Clause, and to scrutiny under the Sherman Act specifically. Congress responded, both to "ensure that the States would continue to have the ability to tax and regulate the business of insurance," Royal Drug Co., 440 U. S., at 217-218 (footnote omitted), and to limit the application of the antitrust laws to the insurance industry, id., at 218. In drafting the § 3(b) exception to the § 2(b) grant of antitrust immunity, Congress borrowed language from our description of the indictment in South-Eastern Underwriters as charging that "[t]he conspirators not only fixed premium rates and agents' commissions, but employed boycotts together with other types of coercion and intimidation to force nonmember insurance companies into the conspiracies." 322 U. S., at 535.
15 Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 2, prohibits monopolization of, or attempts or conspiracies to monopolize, "any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations."
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