Cite as: 525 U. S. 299 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
goal of encouraging joint state/federal enforcement of [that federal measure]." Id., at 102. Shaw thus supports the view that to "impair" a law is to hinder its operation or "frustrate [a] goal" of that law.
Our standard accords with SEC v. National Securities, Inc., 393 U. S. 453 (1969). In that case, we upheld, in face of a McCarran-Ferguson Act challenge, the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to unwind an insurance company merger that the Arizona Director of Insurance had approved. Our opinion pointed to the absence of any "direct conflict": "Arizona has not commanded something which the Federal Government seeks to prohibit. It has permitted respondents to consummate the merger; it did not order them to do so." Id., at 463. But that statement did not stand alone. We also observed that "any 'impairment' in [that] case [was] a most indirect one." Ibid. And we concluded: "The paramount federal interest in protecting shareholders [was] perfectly compatible with the paramount state interest in protecting policyholders." Ibid. There, as here, federal law did not "directly conflict with state regulation," application of federal law did not "frustrate any declared state policy," nor did it "interfere with a State's administrative regime." Supra, at 310.
Applying the standard just announced to the facts of this case, we conclude that suit under RICO by policy beneficiaries would not "impair" Nevada law and therefore is not precluded by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Nevada provides both statutory and common-law remedies to check insurance fraud. The Nevada Unfair Insurance Practices Act, Nev. Rev. Stat. § 686A.010 et seq. (1996), patterned substantially on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' model Unfair Trade Practices Act,8 is a comprehensive administrative scheme that prohibits various forms of insur-8 See 4 National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Model Laws, Regulations and Guidelines 880-1 (1995).
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