Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Antitrust Law

Increasingly, the state and federal antitrust laws are being invoked in a wide variety of civil, criminal, commercial and professional disputes. While the availability of treble damages and an award of costs and attorneys' fees to a prevailing plaintiff likely provides the impetus for the assertion of civil antitrust claims, such claims have met with little success in Virginia during 1988 and 1989. Rather, antitrust defendants have substantially prevailed by asserting defenses based on, inter alia, antitrust immunity; the failure to establish the required nexus with interstate commerce; the failure to prove the existence of a conspiracy; the failure to appropriately define the relevant market, and the failure to demonstrate antitrust injury.