Antitrust Laws and Public Utility Regulation

Many of those concerned with public utility regulation assume that federal antitrust law has little bearing on regulated industries. That assumption is erroneous. This paper indicates some of the ways in which antitrust law affects regulated firms. It begins with a few words about antitrust premises and characteristics of regulation and then turns to three topics: antitrust principles as applied by federal regulatory agencies, antitrust law as applied by the courts to federally regulated firms, and the interface of federal antitrust law with regulation by the several states.