Tom C. Clark

“ In practical application, even though a contract is found to be an exclusive-dealing arrangement, it does not violate the section unless the court believes it probable that performance of the contract will foreclose competition in a substantial share of the line of commerce affected. ”

“ Tampa Electric says that both courts and respondents are in error, because the '700 coal producers who could serve' it, as recognized by the trial court and admitted by respondents, operated in the Appalachian coal area and that its contract requirements were less than 1% of the total marketed production of these producers; that the relevant effective area of competition was the area in which these producers operated, and in which they were willing to compete for the consumer potential. ”

“ A more accurate figure, even assuming pre-emption to the extent of the maximum anticipated total requirements, 2,250,000 tons a year, would be .77%.
It may well be that in the context of antitrust legislation protracted requirements contracts are suspect, but they have not been declared illegal per se. Even though a single contract between single traders may fall within the initial broad proscription of the section, it must also suffer the qualifying disability, tendency to work a substantial-not remote-lessening of competition in the relevant competitive market. ”

“ As of 1954 petitioner operated two electrical generating plants comprising a total of 11 individual generating units, all of which consumed oil in their burners. In 1955 Tampa Electric decided to expand its facilities by the construction of an additional generating plant to be comprised ultimately of six generating units, and to be known as the 'Francis J. Gannon Station.' Although every electrical generating plant in peninsular Florida burned oil at that time, Tampa Electric decided to try coal as boiler fuel in the first two units constructed at the Gannon Station. ”

“ We cannot agree that the contract suffers the claimed anti-trust illegality [2] and, therefore, do not find it necessary to consider respondents' additional argument that such illegality is a defense to the action and a bar to enforceability.
Petitioner Tampa Electric Company is a public utility located in Tampa, Florida. It produces and sells electric energy to a service area, including the city, extending from Tampa Bay eastward 60 miles to the center of the State, and some 30 miles in width. ”

“ The remaining determination, therefore, is whether the pre-emption of competition to the extent of the tonnage involved tends to substantially foreclose competition in the relevant coal market. We think not. That market sees an annual trade in excess of 250,000,000 tons of coal and over a billion dollars-multiplied by 20 years it runs into astronomical figures. There is here neither a seller with a dominant position in the market as in Standard Fashions, supra ”

“ MI-12B, p. 4 (1957) .↑ Id., at 12B-6.↑ 1,569,000 tons from counties in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina; 412,000 tons from counties in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee; the balance was produced in other counties in West Virginia, Virginia and western Kentucky. ”