Thus, the court concludes, "the nature and necessary effect" of splits is "so plainly anticompetitive" that no "elaborate industry analysis" is required to demonstrate their anticompetitive character.

—where the Supreme Court observed that agreements that interfere with the setting of prices by "free market forces" are illegal on their face and further observed that a ban on competitive pricing does not require an elaborate industry analysis to demonstrate its anti-competitive character

"[T] he inquiry mandated by the Rule of Reason is whether the challenged agreement is one that promotes competition or one that suppresses competition."

The object of a Rule of Reason inquiry, as in any antitrust analysis, is "to form a judgment about the competitive significance of the [challenged] restraint."

Finally, "Congress may empower federal courts to make federal common law when a statute contains sweeping language and its legislative history indicates Congress's expectation that the courts will `give shape to the statute's broad mandate by drawing on common-law tradition.'"Id

In the first category are agreements whose nature and necessary effect are so plainly anticompetitive that no elaborate study of the industry is needed to establish their illegality—they are `illegal per se

—and concluded that "the Rule of Reason does not support a defense based on the assumption that competition itself is unreasonable."

The Sherman Act reflects a legislative judgment that ultimately competition will produce not only lower prices, but also better goods and services

Even assuming occasional exceptions to the presumed consequences of competition, the statutory policy precludes inquiry into the question whether competition is good or bad.

In evaluating potential Sherman Act violations, courts employ "two complementary categories of antitrust analysis."