Private Suits, Public Injury and Market Effects under the Sherman Act: Antitrust Laws. Sherman Act. Concerted Refusals to Deal

1959 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 338
Keyword(s):  
Market Effects ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Antitrust Laws

Sherman Act 1890: Modernization and Impact on Markets

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 104-108
Author(s):  
Alex Han
Keyword(s):  
Chicago School ◽  
Perfect Competition ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Free Entry ◽  
Major Purpose ◽  
Free Competition ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
American Economy ◽  
Harvard School

The major purpose of the Sherman Act was to prevent mergers from forming monopolies. It ensures consumers are protected from price discrimination, and there is free competition. Several economists, classical economists, neoclassical economists, Chicago school and Harvard school, pointed out several antitrust laws. Classical economists led by Smith argued that monopolists set prices at higher prices and raise their charges higher through understocking the markets hence corporations and mergers should be prevented. Neoclassical economists developed a model which assumes that there are no barriers to entry whereby there is free entry to the market. Harvard school also advocated for free competition. Either, the Chicago school was against the idea of free competition and proposed some acts from the antitrust laws to be removed.  However, with advancements in technology, the Sherman Act has become outdated and some languages used are held, making it a challenge to interpret in courts. There is a need for the antitrust laws to be reformed to fit the changing technology. Bills should be proposed to make improvements to the acts. For example, Klobuchar Amy, in April 2021, proposed a bill seeking to reform antitrust laws to better perfect competition in the American economy.

Mr. Justice White and the Rule of Reason

1951 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Dishman
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Rule Of Reason ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
The Common ◽  
Obiter Dictum ◽  
Restraint Of Trade

The “rule of reason” remains after almost forty years the most curious obiter dictum ever indulged in by the Supreme Court of the United States. Mistaken though it was in its basic assumptions, the rule nevertheless persists as the Court's standard for construing the Sherman Act. This is not to say, as some critics have said, that the rule has seriously hampered the Department of Justice in enforcing the antitrust laws. We have it on the authority of Thurman Arnold that without the rule die Sherman Act would be “unworkable … because every combination between two men in business is in some measure a restraint of trade.” The rule, he has said, “has the effect of preventing the antitrust laws from destroying the efficiency of diose combinations that are actually serving, instead of exploiting, the consumer.” The fact remains, however, that in adopting the rule the Court erred in at least two respects: first, in applying a test of reasonableness where in the early cases at least none was called for and, second, in basing that rule on a misunderstanding of the common law. For the first of its sins the Court has been scolded many times; for the second, it has received surprisingly litde criticism.

A New Look at the Jurisdiction in ALCOA

1967 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 558-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Raymond
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Adverse Effect ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Aluminum Company ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Foreign Corporations ◽  
American Party ◽  
First Time ◽  
Foreign Corporation

One of the best-known antitrust decisions in the last quarter of a century is United States v. Aluminum Company of America et al., now usually referred to as the ALCOA case. Although the Sherman Act had for some time been given an extraterritorial application when American corporations were involved, the novelty of ALCOA was that the decision, written by that eminent jurist, Judge Learned Hand, for the first time interpreted our antitrust laws as rendering illegal contracts of a foreign corporation which were made abroad with other foreign corporations and which related to business carried on and to acts to be performed abroad. No American party was involved, and no act took place in the United States, in the part of the case that is here to be considered. Jurisdiction was claimed merely on the basis of an adverse “effect” on our foreign and domestic commerce.

Mergers

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Eric A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Market Effects ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Private Litigation

Recent research indicates that labor market power has contributed to wage inequality and economic stagnation. Although the antitrust laws prohibit firms from restricting competition in labor markets as in product markets, the government does little to address the labor market problem, and private litigation has been rare and mostly unsuccessful. This is a particular problem for mergers, which the government has never reviewed for labor market effects. One reason is that the analytic methods for evaluating labor market power in antitrust contexts are less sophisticated than the legal rules used to judge product market power. To remedy this asymmetry, the government can draw on insights from labor economics and use tools that have been developed for measuring labor market concentration.

scholarly journals The Incidence, Nature, and Implications of Price-Fixing Litigation in U.S. Food Industries

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Polopolus ◽  
James S. Wershow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Price Competition ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Federal Policy ◽  
Food Industries ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Pricing Behavior ◽  
Sales Quotas

Antitrust laws generally seek to promote competition in U.S. markets. Alternatively, these laws attempt to correct the type of market failure that occurs when the market does not sustain price competition or embodies undesirable features, such as prices fixed and agreed upon by rival sellers. It is well known that the federal policy to curb price-fixing agreements was central to the enactment of the Sherman Act of 1890. Formal cartels of the 19th and early 20th centuries, with their sales quotas, exclusive sales agencies, price-fixing committees, and customer and geographic sales allocations, apparently have been eliminated from the contemporary scene. Despite the disappearance of United States based formal cartels, there has been considerable litigation in recent years over pricing behavior of individual firms. A wide array of agricultural and food industries have been involved in these actions.

scholarly journals Time for a New Antitrust Era: Refocusing Antitrust Law to Invigorate Competition in the 21st Century

10.51868/4 ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Robert Mahari ◽  
Sandro Lera ◽  
Alex Pentland
Keyword(s):  
Review Process ◽  
Monopoly Power ◽  
Case Review ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Data Ownership ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Regulatory Landscape

U.S. antitrust laws have repeatedly responded to the changing needs of the nation’s economy. As the marketplace grows ever more data-driven, we find ourselves at yet another critical economic juncture that requires us to revisit antitrust practices to ensure healthy and sustainable competition. In this article, we propose two new antitrust approaches that fit into the existing regulatory landscape, detect signs of anticompetitive behavior early, and handle the unique nature of the digital marketplace. First, we advocate for an expanded definition of monopoly power under the Sherman Act that takes corporate data ownership into account. While current proxies for monopoly power, namely market share and price control, are symptoms of anticompetitive behavior, data ownership is increasingly its harbinger. Second, we advocate for an expanded premerger review process that seeks to prevent nascent competitors from being swallowed up by dominant players, a widespread practice that can be shown to reduce competitiveness. To this end, we leverage new insights from network science and empirical data to anticipate which types of mergers are most likely to have anticompetitive effects. Finally, we propose scalable regulatory strategies to discourage the anticompetitive behaviors we describe in their incipiency, without requiring case-by-case review.

scholarly journals Should American Antitrust Laws Protect Only American Consumers?

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-108
Author(s):  
Thanh Phan
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
American Government ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

The United States adopted its first antitrust statute in 1890. Despite their long history of development, American antitrust laws do not specify any objectives. The primary objective of the American antitrust laws centers a long-standing debate among many scholars. This paper firstly argues that the American antitrust laws were designed to promote consumer welfare. However, exemptions for export cartels confine the concept of “consumers” protected by the Sherman Act to those in the U.S territory. This paper secondly proposes that exemptions for export cartels should be abolished for two reasons. First, the exemptions make American antitrust policy inconsistent because they do not reflect the objective that promotes consumer welfare. Second, from an international perspective, exemptions for export cartels are inconsistent with the efforts of the American Government to apply the Sherman Act extraterritorially—a measure that aims to protect consumers from international cartels.  

Joint Ventures Under U.S. and E.E.C. Antitrust Laws

1979 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 58-81
Author(s):  
Henrik Lind
Keyword(s):  
Joint Ventures ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Horizontal Integration ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Neutral Effect

AbstractThe case law supports the proposition that joint ventures are illegal under the Sherman Act only if unresonable restraints of competition are proven to exist. Put differently, joint ventures are of neutral effect under the Sherman Act: Joint subsidiaries do not of themselves infringe the Act, but on the other hand the formation of a joint venture does not save an otherwise unreasonable restraint of competition. An exception to the abovementioned conclusion may be joint ventures between actual competitors, at least as far as horizontal integration is concerned. In this case a per se rule may apply. Finally, the competitive impact of a foreign joint venture may in some cases be such as to validate it under the Sherman Act where its domestic counterparts would have been struck down.

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