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Early Common Law

Contents

Place in the Framework

Early common-law treatment of restraints of trade provides the background against which the Sherman Act was interpreted.

Core Questions

  • Which restraints were treated as unreasonable at common law?
  • How did courts distinguish ancillary restraints from naked restraints?
  • What vocabulary carried forward into early federal antitrust cases?

Working Notes

Add Berkeley outline notes here on early common-law reasonableness, ancillary restraints, and the baseline hostility to naked restraints of trade.