ABSTRACT
Antitrustenforcementhaschangedsignificantlyinrecentyears. Perserulesandbright-linetestsusedtomakeantitrusta "pigeonhole"problem,withtheultimateoutcomeinagivencase almostwhollydependentonhowtheconductwascharacterized. Evenmergeranalysis,whichshouldbethemostfact-sensitiveof disciplines,felltoDerekBok,'PhiladelphiaBank1andtheluxury ofcertainty.Thissimplisticapproachstartedtochangeduring
the mid-to-late 1970's, and fell apart completely during the Reagan administration, where the laissez faire concepts of the Chicago school reached their primacy. Under the twin pressures of international competition and growing economic sophistication, the phrase "antitrust rule" became an oxymoron, and the reign of the so-called rule of reason became close to absolute. 3
The net effect of this change in antitrust standards, ironically enough, was to transform noncriminal antitrust enforcement into a complex form of market regulation. This development in turn virtually disintegrated the "law enforcement" shield that antitrust regulators historically had used to distinguish themselves from the Interstate Commerce Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board et a/. The antitrust "cop on the beat" was still alive, but only in the area of criminal prosecution of hard-core price fixing. During the 1980's, antitrust was epitomized by grand juries and merger regulation, the two polar extremes of the antitrust enforcement spectrum.
