Antitrust

“ If the courts are to apply the lash of the antitrust laws to the backs of businessmen to make them compete, we cannot in fairness also apply the lash whenever they hit upon a successful method of competing. ”

“ If, as petitioners claim, the regulatory scheme provides no assurance that antitrust policy will be implemented, perhaps a repeal of the antitrust law may be implied 'if necessary to make the Securities Exchange Act work, and even then only to the minimum extent necessary.' Silver v. ”

“ Since the antitrust laws serve, among other things, to protect competitive freedom, i.e., the freedom of individual business units to compete unhindered by the group action of others, it follows that the antitrust laws are peculiarly appropriate as a check upon anticompetitive acts of exchanges which conflict with their duty to keep their operations and those of their members honest and viable. ”

“ What triggers the application of the antitrust laws is the asserted tying arrangement, the sale of one product conditioned on the purchase of another. And it is not all tying transactions in general but only those where leverage in one market has been used to distort another which so far have been held illegal restraints of trade. The basis for the rule is clear where the seller is dominant in the tying product market, where the product is patented, or where it is in short supply. ”

“ The very atom of antitrust thinking - the firm - has changed in the last two decades. No longer hierarchical and rigid, business resembles self-assembling, nimble, ad- hoc networks of entrepreneurship superimposed on ever- shifting product groups and profit and loss centers.
Competition used to be extraneous to the firm - now it is commonly an internal affair among autonomous units within a loose overall structure. ”

“ By its very nature an illegal restraint of trade is in some ways 'contrary to the public interest,' and the Commission's antitrust standard, involving an assessment of the necessity for this restraint in terms of legitimate commercial objectives, simply gives understandable content to the broad statutory concept of 'the public interest.' Certainly any reservations the Court of Appeals may have had on this point should have been dispelled by the Commission's careful explanation on remand of the connection between its antitrust standard and the public interest requirement. ”

“ I do not dispute that a national market may be found even though immediate competition takes place only within individual communities, some of which are themselves natural monopolies. For a national monopoly of such local enterprises may still have serious long-term impact on competition and be vulnerable on its own plane to the antitrust laws. ”

“ Indeed, that there are so many direct public controls over unsound competitive practices in the industry refutes the argument that private controls of competition are necessary in the public interest and ought therefore to be immune from scrutiny under the antitrust laws. ”

“ I believe, however, that the orderly course of litigation in the courts and the regular prosecution of trusts charged with the violation of the antitrust law is producing among business men a clearer and clearer perception of the line of distinction between business that is to be encouraged and business that is to be condemned, and that in this quiet way the question of trusts can be settled and competition retained as an economic force to secure reasonableness in prices and freedom and independence in trade. ”

“ In every antitrust case there are two routes to a finding of illegality: critically analyzing the competitive effects and possible justifications of the challenged practice; or subsuming it under one of the per se rules. ”

“ It is of utmost importance to millions of investors, and concerns practices which have an impact on the entire economy of the Nation. It presents for consideration basic principles of antitrust law not previously decided by this Court, and, consequently, is not controlled by precedent. ”

“ We perceive no reason to follow a different rule in antitrust litigation. Indeed, of the three available rules, the rule adopted in Aro is most consistent with the aims and purposes of the trebledamage remedy under the antitrust laws. We must keep in mind the multistate and multiparty character of much private antitrust litigation; often, defendants who have conspired together must be sued in a number of different States if all are to be reached, and, while defendants in some States may be willing to enter into settlements, defendants in others may not. ”

“ The business of the country awaits also, has long awaited and has suffered because it could not obtain, further and more explicit legislative definition of the policy and meaning of the existing antitrust law. ”

“ The administrative efficiency interests in antitrust regulation are unusually compelling. The per se rules avoid "the necessity for an incredibly complicated and prolonged economic investigation into the entire history of the industry involved, as well as related industries, in an effort to determine at large whether a particular restraint has been unreasonable." ”

“ The test under such circumstances should be the same as that governing other vertical relationships, namely, whether in the context of the market structure of this industry, these territorial restraints are reasonable business practices, given the true purposes of the antitrust laws. ”

“ When these bodies act as owners and providers of services, they are fully capable of aggrandizing other economic units with which they interrelate, with the potential of serious distortion of the rational and efficient allocation of resources, and the efficiency of free markets which the regime of competition embodied in the antitrust laws is thought to engender. ”

“ It does not distinguish between classes of customers, but rather grants a cause of action to "any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws. ”

“ As the special provision awarding treble damages to successful plaintiffs illustrates, Congress has encouraged private antitrust litigation not merely to compensate those who have been directly injured but also to vindicate the important public interest in free competition. ”

“ Even assuming that Congress agreed with the Court's notions of the appropriate procedures under the Exchange Act, I cannot believe that Congress would have provided an antitrust forum and private treble damage liability to enforce them.
Whether there has been a violation of the antitrust laws depends not at all upon whether or not the defendants' conduct was arbitrary. ”

“ Rather, effect must be given to the broad terms of the statute itself-'based in whole or in part on any matter complained of' (emphasis added) -read in light of Congress' 'belief that private antitrust litigation is one of the surest weapons for effective enforcement of the antitrust laws.' 381 U.S., at 318, 85 S.Ct., at 1477. ”

“ It is also the policy of my Administration to enforce the antitrust laws to meet the challenges posed by new industries and technologies, including the rise of the dominant Internet platforms, especially as they stem from serial mergers, the acquisition of nascent competitors, the aggregation of data, unfair competition in attention markets, the surveillance of users, and the presence of network effects. ”

“ Before we examine the adequacy of the relief allowed by the District Court, it is appropriate to review some general considerations concerning that most drastic, but most effective, of antitrust remedies-divestiture. The key to the whole question of an antitrust remedy is of course the discovery of measures effective to restore competition. Courts are not authorized in civil proceedings to punish antitrust violators, and relief must not be punitive. ”

“ In my last annual Message, in connection with the subject of the due regulation of combinations of capital which are or may become injurious to the public, I recommend a special appropriation for the better enforcement of the antitrust law as it now stands, to be extended under the direction of the Attorney-General. ”

“ Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purposes of mutual help, and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof ”

“ In any event, however, we cannot accept the Court of Appeals' characterization of this boycott or the antitrust laws. Every concerted refusal to do business with a potential customer or supplier has an expressive component. At one level, the competitors must exchange their views about their objectives and the means of obtaining them. The most blatant, naked price-fixing agreement is a product of communication, but that is surely not a reason for viewing it with special solicitude. ”

“ It is just such restraints upon the freedom of economic units to act according to their own choice and discretion that run counter to antitrust policy. See, e.g., Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 19, 65 S.Ct. ”

“ For example, in addition to the reasons stated above, the respondent asserts that, like any business, an investor-owned utility has an interest in protecting its market. But whatever the motivation for their § 4 suits, this history makes us quite hesitant to take from the utilities the responsibility for enforcing the antitrust laws.
Relying on indirect purchaser actions in utility cases might fail to promote antitrust enforcement for other reasons. Consumers may lack the expertise and experience necessary for detecting improper pricing by a utility's suppliers. ”

“ On the principle that the law may hit the evil where it is most felt, State Antitrust Laws applicable to corporations but not to individuals, [1142] or to vendors of commodities but not to vendors of labor, [1143] have been upheld. Contrary to its earlier view, the Court now holds that an Antitrust Act which exempts agricultural products in the hands of the producer is valid. [1144] Diversity with respect to penalties also has been sustained. Corporations violating the law may be proceeded against by bill in equity, while individuals are indicted and tried. ”

“ Respondents' arguments, however, are not even superficially persuasive. Congress has, it is true, decided to confer antitrust immunity unless the agreement is found to violate certain statutory standards, but as already indicated, antitrust concepts are intimately involved in the standards Congress chose. The Commission's approach does not make the promise of antitrust immunity meaningless because a restraint that would violate the antitrust laws will still be approved whenever a sufficient justification for it exists. ”

“ But to put it bluntly, I worry that the Supreme Court is not only modifying procedural rules to cabin the private plaintiff’s bar, but that it is curbing the substantive rules as well. Since 2004, the Supreme Court has decided ten antitrust cases – not one of those cases was brought by the government. [37] This means that the vast majority of substantive antitrust law is being made in cases involving private plaintiffs. ”

“ B was unwilling to enter the illegal scheme, was motivated principally by what he thought was economic necessity the need to avoid losing business by being unable to offer a major product line-and would have been only marginally deterred by the prospect of antitrust liability. ”

“ The Antitrust Laws.—When the period of concentration in industry came with modern transportation, and it become possible by combination and cooperation to control the market and thus unduly enhance prices, a remedy for the trusts was demanded by the people. ”

“ Congress did not attempt by the antitrust act to limit and restrict the rights of corporations created by the states, or of citizens of the states, in the acquisition or disposition of property, or to make criminal the acts of persons in the acquisition and control of property, which the states of their residence or creation sanctioned or permitted. ”

“ Congress has had the ruling under consideration but has not seen fit to bring such business under these laws by legislation having prospective effect. The business has thus been left for thirty years to develop, on the understanding that it was not subject to existing antitrust legislation. The present cases ask us to overrule the prior decision and, with retrospective effect, hold the legislation applicable. We think that if there are evils in this field which now warrant application to it of the antitrust laws it should be by legislation. ”

“ Regulation of food, automobiles, banks and securities, for example, strengthened these markets along with protecting consumers and investors. Antitrust enforcement helped protect our country from monopoly capitalism and stimulated competition. ”

“ Moreover, on the civil side violations of antitrust laws other than those enumerated in the Act might be imagined. We, therefore, refuse to hold that there are no antitrust violations left to the Department of Justice to enforce. ”

“ The pervasiveness of the antitrust laws' coverage, in the sense of affecting business decision-making, needs no elaboration. Suffice it to say that it cuts deeply into and, with limited exceptions, [13] widely across virtually all [p685] of American business. In addition, under its mandate to prevent "unfair or deceptive acts or practices," the Commission has the responsibility to protect the consumer from being misled by governing the conditions under which goods and services are advertised and sold to individual purchasers. ”

“ It is not for the courts to realign and redirect effective and lawful competition where it already exists and needs only to be released from restraints that violate the antitrust laws. To separate the operating units of going concerns without more supporting evidence than has been presented here to establish either the need for, or the feasibility of, such separation would amount to an abuse of discretion. ”