Word: antitrust
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...Supreme Court this week smashed another-this time one that had stood for 75 years. It ruled that the $5,800,000,000 fire-insurance business, which had been supervised by the states, comes under interstate commerce. As such, insurance will immediately become subject to federal supervision under the antitrust laws. The Court brushed aside pleas of 35 state governors that federal regulation would destroy the "sovereignty of the states...
...General Francis Biddle, and a whacking defeat for not only the governors, but the States' rights bloc in Congress. In a futile race with the Supreme Court, the States-righters had popped bills into both Houses of Congress, aimed to whisk the insurance business out from under the antitrust acts (TIME, Nov. 29). Their contention: insurance regulation is a concern of the states, not the federal government, and has been so held by the Supreme Court for 75 years...
...issue arose back in 1942 when the South Eastern Underwriters Association (196 stock companies representing 80% of the fire insurance written in the U.S.) was indicted on antitrust charges. When the indictment was dismissed by an Atlanta court, Attorney General Biddle appealed...
...antitrust laws have long forbidden the formation in the U.S. of business associations which restrain trade. But the Webb-Pomerene Law, 1918, permitted the formation of export associations provided they do not restrain trade...
...recommended: 1) all foreign-trade agreements of U.S. companies which restrict production or allocate markets should be filed with the Government; 2) the Government should have power to nullify specific agreements. To ward off the threat of antitrust prosecution, he would have the antitrust acts tempered so that criminal action could be taken in the case of foreign agreements only if the company failed to register, or failed to terminate the agreement after a federal order...