Suing OPEC in American Courts for Breach of Antitrust Laws

Record gasoline prices and outright shortages in certain areas of American territories over the summer of 2000 and beyond have made the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (“OPEC”) into the public enemies. As in the past, Congress and the public have turned to antitrust for a solution. If antitrust is unlikely to be a successful weapon against domestic and international oil companies, OPEC once again becomes an inviting target. Never a popular entity with the American public, OPEC epitomizes in the public perception a greedy rapacious international cartel preying on the American public in defiance of the tradition of market competition embodied in the Sherman Act. Then why not unleash the full power of the federal private treble damage litigation (perhaps class actions as well) against a group of foreign nations acting against American interests? In this article the aim is to scrutinize the potential actions against OPEC in American courts and how uch inciting Immunity, based on rules of international law, of OPEC member states as a defense could be effective in these courts.