792
Opinion of Breyer, J.
peals, asking whether the rules, as enforced, "augment[ed] competition and increase[d] market efficiency," found the Commission's conclusion supported by substantial evidence. 128 F. 3d, at 728. That is why the court said that "the record provides no evidence that the rule has in fact led to increased disclosure and transparency of dental pricing"— which is to say that the record provides no evidence that the effects, though anticompetitive, are nonetheless redeemed or justified. Ibid.
The majority correctly points out that "petitioner alone would have had the incentive to introduce such evidence" of procompetitive justification. Ante, at 776. (Indeed, that is one of the reasons defendants normally bear the burden of persuasion about redeeming virtues. See supra, at 788.) But despite this incentive, petitioner's brief in this Court offers nothing concrete to counter the Commission's conclusion that the record does not support the claim of justification. Petitioner's failure to produce such evidence itself "explain[s] why [the lower court] gave no weight to the . . . suggestion that restricting difficult-to-verify claims about quality or patient comfort would have a procompetitive effect by preventing misleading or false claims that distort the market." Ante, at 778.
With respect to the restraint on advertising across-the-board discounts, the majority summarizes its concerns as follows: "Assuming that the record in fact supports the conclusion that the [Association's] disclosure rules essentially bar advertisement of [such] discounts, it does not obviously follow that such a ban would have a net anticompetitive effect here." Ante, at 774. I accept, rather than assume, the premise: The FTC found that the disclosure rules did bar advertisement of across-the-board discounts, and that finding is supported by substantial evidence. See supra, at 783- 784. And I accept as literally true the conclusion that the Court says follows from that premise, namely, that "net anticompetitive effects" do not "obviously" follow from that
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