Byron White

“ The purpose of the Bank Merger Act was to permit certain bank mergers even though they tended to lessen competition in the relevant market. Congress felt that the role of banks in a community's economic life was such that the public interest would sometimes be served by a bank merger even though the merger lessened competition. ”

“ If, for example, just prior to this merger, an experienced banker with competent associates had offered to take over the active management of the bank or another competent businessman with a willingness to tackle the management problems of the bank had offered to buy out the Weaver interests at an acceptable price, it seems obvious that the Weaver group, which seeks to justify the merger in terms of producing an institution rendering better banking service, should not be permitted to merge and to ignore an available alternative. ”

“ Like other urban centers in the Southeast, Nashville has grown steadily since World War II in both population and economic activity. Commercial banks, as 'the intermediaries in most financial transactions,' [2] grew along with their city. From 1955 to 1964, for example, total assets of all banks located in Davidson County increased from $548,300,000 to $1,053,700,000, an increase of 92.2%. The number of banks hardly changed. Indeed, since 1927 there has been only one new bank in the county, Capital City Bank, and at the time of this merger it had achieved only .9% of the county's bank assets. ”

“ Otherwise, the benefits of competition, acknowledged by Congress, would be sacrificed needlessly. For the same reasons, we think it was incumbent upon those seeking to merge in this case to demonstrate that they made reasonable efforts to solve the management dilemma of Nashville Bank short of merger with a major competitor but failed in these attempts, or that any such efforts would have been unlikely to succeed. ”

“ The words 'in the public interest' are again written into this bill now and will remain in the law so that there will be no question but that the courts and the agencies must take the public interest into account. ”

“ The District Court asserted that one effect of the Bank Merger Act of 1966 was to alter the standards used in determining whether a merger is in violation of § 7 of the Clayton Act and § 1 of the Sherman Act. Essentially, the District Court mandated a return to United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495, 68 S.Ct. 1107, 92 L.Ed. 1533 (1948) , which this Court has held to be 'confined to its special facts.' Lexington Bank, 376 U.S. at 672, 84 S.Ct., at 1037. In later cases, especially Philadelphia Bank, supra; Lexington Bank, supra; United States v. Aluminum Co. ”