Federal Trade Commission

“ In a question addressed to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who was testifying in support of the bill, he said:
'I am frank to say that personally I have no sympathy with what a foreigner pays for our products ”

“ The Trade Commission Act was passed by Congress to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations from using unfair methods of competition in the commerce which Congress had the constitutional right to regulate. By section 4 of the act (Comp. St. § 8836d) the commerce to be reached is defined as including not only commerce between the states, and with foreign nations and between the District of Columbia and any state or territory or foreign nation, but also commerce within the District of Columbia. ”

“ West Virginia, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, in the coal, steel, and related industries, to enjoin the Federal Trade Commission from enforcing or attempting to enforce orders issued by that Commission against the complainant companies, requiring them to furnish monthly reports of the cost of production, balance sheets and other voluminous information in detail upon a large variety of subjects relating to the business in which complainant corporations are engaged. ”

“ The kind of specialized knowledge Congress wanted its agency to have was an expertness that would fit it to stop at the threshold every unfair trade practice-that kind of practice, which if left alone, 'destroys competition and establishes monopoly.' Federal Trade Commission v. ”

“ III Appellees contend, however, that these cases and the general practice of agencies and courts in underwriting the broad use of rule-making are irrelevant to the FTC. They argue that the Trade Commission is somehow sui generis, that it is best characterized as a prosecuting rather than a regulatory agency, and that substantive rule-making power should be less readily implied from a general grant of rule-making authority where the agency does not stand astride an industry with pervasive license-granting, rate-setting, or clearance functions. ”

“ And the Commission has this regulatory effect irrespective of whether it chooses to elaborate the vague but comprehensive statutory standards through rule-making or through case-by-case adjudication. Businesses whose practices appear clearly covered by the Trade Commission's adjudicatory decisions against similarly situated parties presumably will comply with the Commission's holding rather than await a Commission action against them individually ”

“ There is a special reason, however, why courts should not lightly modify the Commission's orders made in efforts to safeguard a competitive economy. Congress when it passed the Trade Commission Act felt that courts needed the assistance of men trained to combat monopolistic practices in the framing of judicial decrees in antitrust litigation. Congress envisioned a commission trained in this type of work by experience in carrying out the functions imposed upon it. ”

“ To investigate, from time to time, trade conditions in and with foreign countries where associations, combinations, or practices of manufacturers, merchants, or traders, or other conditions, may affect the foreign trade of the United States, and to report to Congress thereon, with such recommendations as it deems advisable. ”

“ Storer and its successors are, of course, closely related to the question we face here. For a major component of appellees' complaint is the abridgement of their interest in having the Trade Commission Act's standard of illegality elaborated only in an adjudicatory context. In our view, this argument was adequately answered in Storer, at least to the extent the FTC's rule serves the "purpose of shortening and simplifying the adjudicative process and of clarifying the law in advance," [10] and thus, in Storer' s language, aids the Commission in the "orderly conduct of its business." ”

“ The Commission is empowered to investigate from time to time “the organization, business, conduct, practices, and management” of any commercial corporation and its relation to any other corporation, and to make recommendations for a readjustment of its business alleged to be violating the anti-trust laws, including those relating to price discriminations, intercorporate stock-holdings, and interlocking directorates. The purpose of the Commission is to advise and regulate rather than to punish. ”

“ Two days after President Wilson's 1914 message to Congress, the Administration's plan for a trade commission was introduced in both Houses of Congress. Sponsored by Congressman Clayton of Alabama and Senator Newlands, the bill [1] essentially provided for an investigatory commission, clothed with power to compel reports on corporations and business and financial practices and to recommend prosecution under the antitrust laws. The proposed agency lacked any independent power to order a halt to business practices involving a violation of law. ”

“ The Commission is the expert body to determine what remedy is necessary to eliminate the unfair or deceptive trade practices which have been disclosed. It has wide latitude for judgment and the courts will not interfere except where the remedy selected has no reasonable relation to the unlawful practices found to exist.
But in the present case, we do not reach the question whether the Commission would be warranted in hol ing that no qualifying language [4] would eliminate the deception which it found lurking in the word Alpacuna. ”

“ In all of these legislative proceedings, the position of the FTC has been steadfast: consistently, it has insisted that without new legislation it lacks authority to enjoin mergers pending completion of agency action. In March of 1957, FTC Chairman Gwynne informed the appropriate Committees of the decision in Federal Trade Comm'n v. International Paper Co., 241 F.2d 372 (C.A.2d Cir. 1956) , that the all-writs statute would not support an FTC application for preliminary relief. ”

“ These reports, as well as the testimony given by members of the Commission before congressional committees, make it clear that long before the filing of this complaint the members of the Commission at that time, or at least some of them, were of the opinion that the operation of the multiple basing point system as they had studied it was the equivalent of a price fixing restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act. ”

“ It is clearly within the special competence of the Commission to appraise the adverse effect on competition that might result from postponing a particular order prohibiting continued violations of the law. Furthermore, the Commission alone is empowered to develop that enforcement policy best calculated to achieve the ends contemplated by Congress and to allocate its available funds and personnel in such a way as to execute its policy efficiently and economically. ”

“ Beginning in July 1933, the industry held a series of meetings in Chicago for the ostensible purpose of drafting a code of fair competition to govern it under the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195. These meetings resulted in an understanding and agreement among those attending, including respondents, to sell lead pigments 'on the basis of flat delivered prices to customers within designated zones, with uniform differentials applicable as between such zones . ”

“ Only the Commission, for example, is competent to make an initial determination as to whether and to what extent there is a relevant 'industry' within which the particular respondent competes and whether or not the nature of that competition is such as to indicate identical treatment of the entire industry by an enforcement agency. ”

“ That the reports were required 'for all the purposes and under all the authority granted to them by law, including the purpose of gathering and compiling said information for publication and the consequent regulation of the interstate commerce of said complainants resulting from such publication of the true trade facts as to all of the business of complainants and of others engaged in commerce in those commodities, and including the purpose of making reports to Congress and of recommending additional legislation to Congress. ”