The professional association of civil engineers has accepted a ‘Code of Ethics.' One endowment of the Code prohibits members of the association from discussing prices with a potential customer until after the customer had chosen an engineer.

1. Is this endowment of the Code a ‘restraint of trade' within the meaning of antitrust law? Why or why not? "Yes" or "no" alone gets you no points.

2. If the endowment is a restraint of trade is it a ‘horizontal' or ‘vertical' restraint of trade? Defend your choice - Why is it one and not the other?

3. If the endowment is a restraint of trade, must it be judged a ‘per se' violation or according to the ‘rule of reason?' Defend your choice - Why should it be one and not the other?

4. If the endowment is judged according to the rule of reason (though this isn't necessarily the correct answer to No. 3 above), what urgings might the association make that the provision is ‘reasonable' within the meaning of antitrust law? That is, you may think it ‘reasonable' for any number of reasons, however your yardstick has to be something related to the purposes of antitrust law