Uber's fine: The insidious PUC

“Restraint of trade” is a precise term of law that involves illegally interfering with free competition in business and commercial transactions, which tend to restrict production, affect prices or otherwise control the market to the detriment of purchasers or consumers of goods and services.

This staple of common law, nowadays applied through the Sherman Antitrust Act, is invoked when companies collude or otherwise “cooperate” to corner a market and/or protect market share.

What a pity it can't be applied to government, which regularly engages in restraint of trade. Consider the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's insidious war against modern conveyances.

PUC judges Tuesday voted to fine Uber, the ride-sharing service, $49.9 million for having the audacity to challenge the long PUC-protected taxi monopoly.

Yes, the PUC this year granted Uber a license to operate in the commonwealth — but only after inflicting serious material harm on it. And the PUC's command economists apparently never got over an innovative company challenging the statist orthodoxy of regulatory overreach.

Thus, this week's nearly $50 million fine — for the temeritous infraction of offering app-based, arms-length transactions that better serve the same public the PUC purports to protect. How ludicrous.