SmileDirectClub can move forward with its lawsuit challenging the Georgia dental board’s authority to ban its core business model, a divided Eleventh Circuit ruled Tuesday, August 11, rejecting the board’s argument that its status as a closely supervised state regulator shields it from antitrust liability.
“The board members’ argument is ultimately without merit,” Judge R. Lanier Anderson III wrote for the court, saying they “established no more than the mere potential for active supervision on the part of the governor,” reported Bloomberg.
The oral arguments in the Eleventh Circuit centered around state-action immunity, under which medical boards can deflect antitrust lawsuits by arguing that they’re acting on behalf of the state. Georgia’s dental board members, after being sued by SmileDirectClub, are trying to gain state-action immunity.
Full Content: Bloomberg
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