William J. Brennan, Jr.

“ Monfort of Colorado, Inc., for example, we found that a plaintiff competitor had not shown antitrust injury and thus could not challenge a merger that was assumed to be illegal under § 7 of the Clayton Act, even though the merged company threatened to engage in vigorous price competition that would reduce the plaintiff's profits. We observed that nonpredatory price competition for increased market share, as reflected by prices that are below "market price" or even below the costs of a firm's rivals, "is not activity forbidden by the antitrust laws." ”

“ Low prices benefit consumers regardless of how those prices are set, and so long as they are above predatory levels, they do not threaten competition. Hence, they cannot give rise to antitrust injury. ”

“ Petitioner ARCO is an integrated oil company that, inter alia, markets gasoline in the Western United States. It sells gasoline to consumers both directly through its own stations and indirectly through ARCO-brand dealers. Respondent USA is an independent retail marketer of gasoline which, like other independents, buys gasoline from major petroleum companies for resale under its own brand name. Respondent competes directly with ARCO dealers at the retail level. ”

“ Respondent argues that, as a competitor, it can show antitrust injury from a vertical conspiracy to fix maximum prices that is unlawful under § 1 of the Sherman Act, even if the prices were set above predatory levels. In addition, respondent maintains that any loss flowing from a per se violation of § 1 automatically satisfies the antitrust injury requirement. ”

“ Conduct in violation of theanti trust laws may have three effects, often interwoven: In some respects the conduct may reduce competition, in other respects it may increase competition, and in still other respects effects may be neutral as to competition. The antitrust injury requirement ensures that a plaintiff can recover only if the loss stems from a competition-reducing aspect or effect of the defendant's behavior. ”

“ Finally, we observed that "if the actual price charged under a maximum price scheme is nearly always the fixed maximum price, which is increasingly likely as the maximum price approaches the actual cost of the dealer, the scheme tends to acquire all the attributes of an arrangement fixing minimum prices." ”

“ A supplier, for example, can reduce its prices to its own downstream dealers and share the losses with them, while forcing competing dealers to bear by themselves the full loss imposed by the lower prices. Cf. FTC v. Sun Oil Co., 371 U.S. 505, 522, 83 S.Ct. 358, 368, 9 L.Ed.2d 466 (1963) . But because a firm always is able to challenge directly a rival's pricing as predatory, there is no reason to dispense with the antitrust injury requirement in an action by a competitor against a vertical agreement.↑ We did not reach a contrary conclusion in Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. ”

“ This statement does not imply that losses from nonpredatory pricing might qualify as antitrust injury; we were quite careful to limit our discussion in that case to predatory pricing. See ibid. (nonpredatory prices would not cause antitrust injury because they would "leave respondents in the same position as would market forces") . We noted that " [e] xcept for the alleged conspiracy to monopolize the . . . market through predatory pricing, these alleged conspiracies could not have caused respondents to suffer an 'antitrust injury.' " Id., at 586, 106 S.Ct., at 1355. ”

“ Kiefer-Stewart, supra, 340 U.S., at 212, 71 S.Ct., at 260.↑ The Court of Appeals implied that the antitrust injury requirement could be satisfied by a showing that the "long-term" effect of the maximum-price agreements could be to eliminate retailers and ultimately to reduce competition. 859 F.2d, at 694, 696. We disagree. Rivals cannot be excluded in the long run by a nonpredatory maximum-price scheme unless they are relatively inefficient. Even if that were false, however, a firm cannot claim antitrust injury from nonpredatory price competition on the asserted ground that it is "ruinous." ”

“ That case concerned a newspaper distributor who sought to charge his customers more than the suggested retail price advertised by the publisher. After the publisher attempted to discipline the distributor by hiring another carrier to take away some of the distributor's customers, the distributor brought suit under § 1. ”