5.5 Non-Applicability or Exemption Clauses: Where Competition Laws Do NotApply

5.5.1 Jurisdictional Limitations• De minimis: agreements below significance escape (the triviality filters of various regimes).• Sector carve-outs: sovereign functions, defence, and where sector-specific regimes govern (natural monopoly regulation).• Export cartels (in some regimes): cartels affecting only foreign markets — the exemption most systems grant and most economists regret.5.5.2 Sovereign Immunity and its Implications for Enforcement• State action: acts of the state (legislated monopolies; policy-mandated conduct) are not private conspiracies — the state-action immunity doctrines (and their abuse risk: private conduct hiding behind regulatory skirts — the "pocket merger" of regulation and incumbency).• Foreign sovereign compulsion: conduct compelled by a foreign state's law — a recognised defence (with its boundary disputes).• State-owned enterprises: the competition-neutrality question — SOEs competing commercially must compete by competition rules (the OECD's competition-neutrality toolkit).