Competition law

“ For the sixth law of competition we have: In any given industry the tendency toward the death of competition [154] (monopoly) varies directly with the amount of capital required for each competing unit. This law is proven in part by the preceding laws; for when a large capital is required for each competing unit, the number of competitors will be small and the tendency toward monopoly will be strong; but it may also be proven independently. Business men, before they form a combination, are certain to ask whether new competitors are likely to enter the field against the combination. ”

“ Books prescribing such anti-trust legislation may continue to cumber the libraries of our lawyers, and streams of statutes may continue to pour from the lawmaking bodies of states and Nation, but these will be either positively harmful or wholly harmless, never effective.
We are, indeed, “fooling” with natural laws, and we can do so only at our peril. The law of competition and the law of co-operation or combination are what they have often been called, the centripetal and centrifugal forces of social economics. Competition is often a painful but really a merciful process ”

“ The respondent already has the monopoly of its own goods with the full assent of the law and no one can compete with it with regard to those goods, which are the only ones concerned. It seems obvious that the respondent is not creating a monopoly in them for anyone else, although I see nothing to hinder its doing so by conveying them all to one single vendee. The worst that can be said, so far as I see, is that it hinders competition among those who purchase from it. ”

“ The manufacturers know their business ! This law cannot act in the present economic conditions, because a thousand obstacles under the form of legal or actual monopolies obstruct it, but if under an imaginary regime of absolutely free competition all these obstacles were removed, the sale price and the cost price would be identical. So that, paradoxical as such an assertion appears, it may be said that if co-operation were universal the end which is vainly imagined under free competition would be attained. ”

“ Here, he says, we have an element of combination from which he assumes the element of competition has been eliminated. But his error is in the analogy he seeks to establish between such agreements from which the element of competition cannot be expelled, and agreements which are based upon the control of some special privilege created by law, and of which the great railroad and industrial trusts are examples, and which people have in mind when they talk of the “trust problem.”
Clearly no monopoly exists nor can be made to exist in the retail trade. ”

“ Dominant undertakings and associations of undertakings shall not use their market position to cause other undertakings to grant them preferential terms unless there is an objective justification for such preferential treatment.
16.4. An undertaking having superior market power in relation to small and medium-sized competitors shall not use their market power directly or indirectly to hinder such competitors in an unfair manner. ”

“ Test of the legality of a combination under this act is its necessary effect upon competition in commerce among the States or with foreign nations. If its necessary effect is only incidentally or indirectly to restrict the competition, while its chief result is to foster the trade and increase the business of those who make and operate it, it does not violate that law. ”

“ At common law a cessation or diminution of competition, springing from a unity of ownership,-as, where one competitor sold his business to another, or both sold out to a third person, etc., was never regarded as a restraint of trade; such cessation or diminution being incident to the union of property or business in one ownership, and not a restraint imposed by contract. ”

“ So long as the question of monopoly is not involved, competition can always be looked for when a combination is making too great profits; and the new and competing corporation and individuals should be protected by law against the danger of price cutting for the express purpose of driving the new competitor out of business. However, it must be remembered that a combination acting unfairly in competition may be more oppressive than a monopoly. ”

“ Excessive competition is not now accepted as necessarily conducive to the public good. The fact is, that the early common law doctrine in regard to contracts in restraint of trade largely grew out of a state of society and of business which has ceased to exist, and hence the doctrine has been much modified, as will be seen by comparison of the early English cases with modern decisions both English and American. ”

“ The test applied in the opinion of the Court today will not confuse, is in accord with our prior decisions endorsed by Congress and, most important, is in keeping with the general purposes of this Nation to retain an economy in which competition is a general law of trade except where actual 'Discoveries' have been made. ”

“ A pertinent example of an attempt by the government to keep competition alive is the Interstate Commerce law. Before its passage the railway companies had a patched-up and nominally illegal species of combination to restrict competition, known as pooling. ”

“ The common-law principle that contracts in restraint of competition are void, so often appealed to nowadays, has really but slight power. It merely prevents the parties who make an agreement to restrain competition, from enforcing such agreements in court. Attempts have also been made to apply this principle to secure an annulment of the charter of corporations which engage in monopolistic combinations. ”

“ Free competition is understood to be a situation characterized by exist adequate conditions which allow any economic agent, be it a supplier or buyer, to freely enter and exit the market, and those that are in the market have the possibility either individually or through concerted action to impose any conditions on the exchange mechanism. ”

“ The test of reasonableness was never applied by the court at common law to contracts or combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade whose purpose was or whose necessary effect would be to stifle competition, to control prices, or establish monopolies. ”

“ The right of competition rests upon the doctrine that the interests of the great public are best subserved by permitting the general and natural laws of business to have their full and free operation, and that this end is best attained when the trader is allowed in his business to make free use of these laws. ”

“ UNFAIR COMPETITION.—The most common way in which trade marks and trade names become the subject of litigation, is in connection with unfair competition. By this term we mean, ordinarily, the imitation by one person, for the purpose of deceiving another, of the name, device, or symbol used by a business rival. The courts act in such cases upon the theory that the public should be protected, and should not have other goods pawned off on it in place of something else which a person thinks he is getting. ”

“ The Legislature shall provide by law for the regulation, prohibition, or reasonable restraint of common carriers, partnerships, associations, trusts, monopolies, and combinations of capital, so as to prevent them or any of them from making scarce articles of necessity, trade, or commerce, or from increasing unreasonably the cost thereof to the consumer, or preventing reasonable competition in any calling, trade, or business. ”

“ Contracts between persons subject to this Law, are prohibited insofar as they set prices and contractual terms for the sale of goods or provision of services to third parties, and are intended to have, or have, or may have the effect of restricting, falsifying, limiting or impeding competition in all or part of the market. ”

“ The objective of this Law is to promote and protect the exercise of free competition and the efficiency that benefits the producers and consumers; and to prohibit monopolistic and oligopolistic practices and other means that could impede, restrict, falsify, or limit the enjoyment of economic freedom. ”

“ Each Party shall adopt or maintain national competition laws that proscribe anticompetitive business conduct, with the objective of promoting economic efficiency and consumer welfare, and shall take appropriate action with respect to that conduct. ”

“ Article 10: Agreements, decisions, collective recommendations or concerted activities are prohibited if they:
1o Fix, directly or indirectly, prices or other conditions essential to the sale or provision of goods or services;
2o Limit production, distribution, and the technical or technological development of investments;
3o Divide markets, geographical areas, supply sectors, or supply sources between competitors ”

“ So far as concerns the allegations of unfair competition in trade, upon which the bill mainly rests, such averments contain no element of a cause of action arising under the Federal Constitution or statutory law. ”

“ That the production of security should, in the interests of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition. Whence it follows:
That no government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity. ”

“ Whether the free operation of the normal laws of competition is a wise and wholesome rule for trade and commerce is an exonomic question which this court need not consider or determine. Undoubtedly, there are those who think that the general business interests and prosperity of the country will be best promoted if the rule of competition is not applied. ”

“ It has been proposed, however, that the word ‘reasonable’ should be made a part of the statute, and then that it should be left to the court to say what is a reasonable restraint of trade, what is a reasonable suppression of competition, what is a reasonable monopoly. ”

“ A general application of the Act to all combinations of business and capital organized to suppress commercial competition is in harmony with the spirit and impulses of the times which gave it birth. 'Trusts' and 'monopolies' were the terror of the period. ”

“ To prove that a combination or monopoly exists within the meaning of the act, it is not necessary to show that the immediate effect of the acts complained of is to suppress competition or to create a complete monopoly. ”

“ Our cases determine that a party has monopoly power if it has, over 'any part of the trade or commerce among the several states', a power of controlling prices or unreasonably restricting competition. ”

“ For all practical purposes, whether those of the student, the legislator or the lawyer, restraint of trade and prevention of competition in trade are substantially equivalent, and are governed by the same principles. To what extent, if at all, trade ought to be restrained, or competition prevented by statute, or may lawfully be restrained or prevented by contract, involves, at bottom, elementary questions of public policy. ”

“ Nothing is alleged which would justify the conclusion that the public suffered injury or that competitors had reasonable ground for complaint. All question of monopoly or combination being out of the way, a private merchant, acting with entire good faith, may properly refuse to sell, except in conjunction, such closely associated articles as ties and bagging. If real competition is to continue, the right of the individual to exercise reasonable discretion in respect of his own business methods must be preserved. ”

“ Upon the evidence adduced at the trial, the District Court found that the effect of the clause had not been in any way substantially to lessen competition or to create a monopoly in any line of commerce. ”

“ It has been repeatedly held by this court that the purpose of the statute is to maintain free competition in interstate commerce and that any concerted action by any combination of men or corporations to cause, or which in fact does cause, direct and undue restraint of competition in such commerce, falls within the condemnation of the act and is unlawful. ”

“ Thus all tradesmen may lawfully compete with each other in the ordinary way of business, even though the result of this competition is the ruin of the weaker competitors. But in selling to another the good-will of my business I may lawfully deprive 205myself of this liberty by an express agreement with the purchaser to that effect. He thereby acquires against me a right of exemption from competition, and this right is both personal and negative. It is a monopoly, protected not against the world at large, but against a determinate individual. ”

“ The right of each competitor to fix the prices of the commodities which he offers for sale * * * is indispensable to the very existence of competition. Strike down or stipulate away that right, and competition is not only restricted, but destroyed. ”

“ Corporations engaged in the same business activity in different areas do not necessarily 'compete' with each other so that their combination would substantially lessen competition between them, even though their combination might result in a restraint of commerce or a tendency toward monopoly violative of § 7. ”

“ Realities must dominate the judgment. The mere fact that the parties to an agreement eliminate competition between themselves is not enough to condemn it. 'The legality of an agreement or regulation cannot be determined by so simple a test, as whether it restrains competition. Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains.' Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, supra. The familiar illustrations of partnerships, and enterprises fairly integrated in the interest of the promotion of commerce, at once occur. ”