Joint Ventures and Other Competitor Collaborations as Single Entity “Undertakings” Under US Law

"The topic of this article is competitor collaborations and the single entity doctrine under Section 1 of the US Sherman Act. Does the court have more than one actor before it? Such a simple question triggers complex answers in both the EU and US. The reader of the preceding article and this article will quickly discern much in common between the US and EU approaches. Both largely apply what might be called a “functional analysis”. The US Supreme Court’s recent American Needle decision shows a movement away from formalism to a case by case analysis under the rule of reason. The US appears to be following the lead of the EU away from the categorical to be fact-intensive."