The FTC’s Anticompetitive Pricing Case Against Intel

While the FTC has statutory authority to enforce the Clayton Act, it cannot enforce the Sherman Act directly. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held, however, that 5’s prohibition of “unfair methods of competition” reaches everything in the Sherman Act plus a “penumbra” of practices that fall outside its reach. The FTC’s wide-ranging complaint against Intel Corp. indicates that the FTC hopes to reach this penumbra, although it does not make clear which of the many challenged practices would require legal standards beyond the Sherman Act’s reach.