Laserfiche WebLink
f • • <br />The Clayton Act Amendments of 1987 <br />The railroad industry historically has been heavily regulated <br />by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As a result, a private <br />party cannot sue a railroad under the antitrust Laws. This immunity <br />from the antitrust laws results From two factors. First, the <br />Supreme Court's 1922 decision in Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern <br />Railway Co. prevents private parties from recovering damages <br />under the antitrust laws against an industry regulated by the <br />ICC. Second, Section 16 of the Clayton Act (enacted in 1914) <br />prevents private parties from obtaining injunctive relief against <br />railroads. <br />Since the 4-R Act was passed in 1976 and the Staggers Rail <br />Act in 1980, the railroad industry has been largely deregulated. <br />The ICC, while maintaining limited regulatory authority, has few <br />effective powers to prohibit anticompetitive railroad behavior or <br />to compel competition in circumstances where no competition <br />presently exists, and what powers it has under Staggers have gone <br />largely unenforced. The impact of deregulation, therefore, has <br />been to free the railroads of virtually all constraints without <br />imposing the corresponding restrictions that would normally apply <br />under the antitrust laws. <br />The Clayton Act Amendments of 1987 (5.443/H.R.941) would <br />amend the antitrust laws in two ways: (1) it would overturn the <br />"Keo h" doctrine; and (2) it would repeal the prohibition against <br />injunctive relief contained in Section 16 of the Clayton Act <br />insofar as it applies to railroads. These amendments would <br />subject railroads to the same antitrust law principles that <br />