This Comment confronts the mounting challenges of antitrust jurisprudence. Modern courts struggle to enforce the Sherman Act—an 1890 statute increasingly strained by the realities of contemporary markets. These difficulties are compounded by a shifting regulatory landscape: a Trump administration that champions free-market ideals, legislation aimed at curbing corporate dominance, and a judiciary tasked with navigating over a century of conflicting precedents. Such tensions threaten the Act’s original purpose to restrain corporate power.
Focusing on Section 1 of the Act, which seemingly places a categorical ban on “every contract” in restraint of trade, this Comment analyzes the ongoing friction between the rigid per se (bright-line) rule and the discretionary rule of reason. It argues that the judiciary’s retreat from bright-line rules risks emboldening corporate actors and undermining the democratic commitments of antitrust law.
This Comment makes two key contributions. First, it reconstructs the per se doctrine through the lens of Section 1’s treatment of joint ventures—arrangements that sit between multiparty agreements and single entities—which typifies the growing complexity of corporate organization. Recognizing antitrust as a body of judge-made law, this Comment reimagines the per se doctrine by tracing a throughline across a century of seemingly inconsistent Supreme Court precedent. Th is reconstruction offers a modernized vision of the per se doctrine: one that remains faithful to Section 1’s democratic aims while aligning with today’s market structures. Contrary to judicial skepticism, this Comment shows that the per se doctrine can coexist with the modern economy.
Second, this Comment defends bright-line rules as essential to preserving consistency and curbing judicial overreach. By restoring the per se doctrine’s legitimacy, this Comment argues that bright-line enforcement remains critical to checking corporate power and safeguarding the foundational promises of antitrust law.
