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During the past year, the United States Supreme Court, in two decisions of significance, refused to summarily censure conduct having legitimate, procompetitive benefits. In similar fashion, the United States Court ofAppeals for the Fourth Circuit continued to scrutinize antitrust claims, rejecting those failing to measure up to pleading and proof requirements, while also reaffirming the vitality of the state action immunity doctrine as a bar to those that did. Meanwhile, Virginia's federal district courts grappled with time worn conspiracy challenges to medical staff privileging decisions, while simultaneously forging new ground in one of the first cases to consider market definition in the realm of electronic commerce over the Internet.

The antitrust laws are a minefield for the uninitiated. Indicative of this reality is the fact that there were no successful civil lawsuits alleging a violation of the antitrust laws brought in Virginia over the past year. A number of conspiracy, monopolization and price discrimination cases were attempted, but they all failed for a variety of reasons outlined in greater detail below. In contrast to the national trend, no antitrust cases with regard to health care were decided in Virginia during the past year. The absence of such cases represents a dramatic change from previous experience, which perhaps reflects the reality that-staff privilege and exclusive dealing cases involving hospitals or physicians are rarely successful under the antitrust laws.

Consistent with the recent national trend, antitrust claims in Virginia met with little success in Virginia's courts over the past two years. Not only have the number of antitrust complaints dwindled, but those that are filed are routinely dismissed on the pleadings or by means of summary judgment after discovery. Recent antitrust conspiracy actions have failed for a variety of fundamental reasons, including a lack of standing to bring the action and a lack of a multiplicity of actors capable of engaging in a conspiracy. On the whole, monopolization claims fared no better, and have been dismissed largely because of the absence of any evidence of adverse impact on competition. This article addresses federal and state legislative development and enforcement activities, and antitrust decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and state and federal courts of Virginia for the past two years.

This year witnessed the advance of a wide variety of antitrust and trade regulation theories, most of which met with little success. Of the antitrust cases, Continental Airlines waged a successful battle to eliminate carry-on baggage restrictions at Dulles Airport. Additionally, Maryland's price-setting scheme for liquor was not accorded state action immunity. On the other side of the ledger, another antitrust litigant failed to overcome the requirement that efforts to petition the government must be objectively baseless in order to meet the sham exception to the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. Difficulties in proving an antitrust injury and the intent element of a section conspiracy to monopolize claim ended another long-pitched battle over limited vermiculite resources. The Fourth Circuit treated an exclusive supply case with the same sort of back-of-the-hand treatment accorded most vertical restraint cases over the past ten years. Likewise, regardless of the statutory or regulatory scheme, dealership and franchise termination cases met with little success. Finally, while the malice requirement in the Virginia Business Conspiracy Act (the "Act") has become ingrained in Virginia jurisprudence as the legal malice standard, courts are finding other ways to dispose of these claims. In doing so, courts have enunciated a clear and convincing evidence standard for cases under the Act.