MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to review the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals which, with one judge dissenting, vacated and set aside a cease and desist order issued by the Federal Trade Commission against the respondents. 157 F.2d 533. Those respondents are: The Cement Institute, an unincorporated trade association composed of 74 corporations
The proceedings were begun by a Commission complaint of two counts. The first charged that certain alleged conduct set out at length constituted an unfair method of competition in violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. 38 Stat. 719, 15 U.S.C. § 45. The core of the charge was that the respondents had restrained and hindered competition in the sale and distribution of cement by means of a combination among themselves made effective through mutual understanding or agreement to employ a multiple basing point system of pricing. It was alleged that this system resulted in the quotation of identical terms of sale and identical prices for cement by the respondents at any given point in the United States. This system had worked so successfully, it was further charged, that for many years prior to the filing of the complaint, all cement buyers throughout the nation, with rare exceptions, had been unable to purchase cement for delivery in any given locality from any one of the respondents at a lower price or on more favorable terms than from any of the other respondents.
The second count of the complaint, resting chiefly on the same allegations of fact set out in Count I, charged that the multiple basing point system of sales resulted in systematic price discriminations between the customers of each respondent. These discriminations were made, it was alleged, with the purpose of destroying competition in price between the various respondents in violation of § 2 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat. 1526. That section, with
Resting upon its findings, the Commission ordered that respondents cease and desist from "carrying out any planned common course of action, understanding, agreement, combination, or conspiracy" to do a number of things, 37 F.T.C. 87, 258-262. all of which things, the Commission argues, had to be restrained in order effectively to restore individual freedom of action among the separate units in the cement industry. Certain contentions with reference to the order will later require a more detailed discussion of its terms. For the present it is sufficient to say that, if the order stands, its terms are broad enough to bar respondents from acting in concert to sell cement on a basing point delivered price plan which so eliminates competition that respondents' prices are always identical at any given point in the United States.
We shall not now detail the numerous contentions urged against the order's validity. A statement of these contentions can best await the separate consideration we give them.
Jurisdiction. — At the very beginning we are met with a challenge to the Commission's jurisdiction to entertain the complaint and to act on it. This contention is pressed by respondent Marquette Cement Manufacturing Co. and is relied upon by other respondents. Count I of the complaint is drawn under the provision in § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act which declares that "Unfair methods of competition . . . are hereby declared unlawful." Marquette contends that the facts alleged in Count I do not constitute "an unfair method of competition" within the meaning of § 5. Its argument runs this way: Count I in reality charges a combination to restrain trade. Such
As early as 1920 this Court considered it an "unfair method of competition" to engage in practices "against public policy because of their dangerous tendency unduly to hinder competition or create monopoly." Federal Trade Comm'n v. Gratz, 253 U.S. 421, 427. In 1922, the Court in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U.S. 441, sustained a cease and desist order against a resale price maintenance plan because such a plan "necessarily constitutes a scheme which restrains the natural flow of commerce and the freedom of competition in the channels of interstate trade which it has been the purpose of all the anti-trust acts to maintain." Id. at 454. The Court, in holding that the scheme before it constituted an unfair method of competition, noted that
Despite this long and consistent administrative and judicial construction of § 5, we are urged to hold that these prior interpretations were wrong and that the term "unfair methods of competition" should not be construed as embracing any conduct within the ambit of the Sherman Act. In support of this contention. Marquette chiefly relies upon its reading of the legislative history of the Commission Act. We have given careful consideration to this contention because of the earnestness with which it is pressed. Marquette points to particular statements of some of the Act's sponsors which, taken out of their context, might lend faint support to its contention that Congress did not intend the Commission to concern itself with conduct then punishable under the Sherman Act. But on the whole the Act's legislative history shows a strong congressional purpose not only to continue enforcement of the Sherman Act by the Department of Justice and the federal district courts but also to supplement that enforcement through the administrative process of the new Trade Commission. Far from being regarded as a rival of the Justice Department and the district courts in dissolving combinations in restraint of trade, the new Commission was envisioned as an aid to them and was specifically authorized to assist them in the drafting of
We adhere to our former rulings. The Commission has jurisdiction to declare that conduct tending to restrain trade is an unfair method of competition even though the selfsame conduct may also violate the Sherman Act.
There is a related jurisdictional argument pressed by Marquette which may be disposed of at this time. While review of the Commission's order was pending in the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Attorney General filed a civil action in the Federal District Court for Denver, Colorado,
We find nothing to justify a holding that the filing of a Sherman Act suit by the Attorney General requires the termination of these Federal Trade Commission proceedings. In the first place, although all conduct violative of the Sherman Act may likewise come within the unfair trade practice prohibitions of the Trade Commission Act, the converse is not necessarily true. It has long been recognized that there are many unfair methods of competition that do not assume the proportions of Sherman Act violations. Federal Trade Comm'n v. R.F. Keppel & Bro., 291 U.S. 304; Federal Trade Comm'n v. Gratz, 253 U.S. 421, 427. Hence a conclusion that respondents' conduct constituted an unfair method of competition does not necessarily mean that their same activities would also be found to violate § 1 of the Sherman Act. In the second place, the fact that the same conduct may constitute a violation of both acts in nowise requires us to dismiss this Commission proceeding. Just as the Sherman Act itself permits the Attorney General to bring simultaneous civil and criminal suits against a defendant based on the same misconduct, so the Sherman Act and the Trade Commission Act provide the Government with cumulative remedies against activity detrimental to competition. Both the legislative history of the Trade Commission Act and its specific language indicate a congressional
Objections to Commission's Jurisdiction by Certain Respondents on Ground That They Were Not Engaged in Interstate Commerce. — One other challenge to the Commission's jurisdiction is specially raised by Northwestern Portland and Superior Portland. The Commission found that "Northwestern Portland makes no sales or shipments outside the State of Washington," and that "Superior Portland, with few exceptions, makes sales and shipments outside the State of Washington only to Alaska." These two respondents contend that, since they did not engage in interstate commerce and since § 5 of the Trade Commission Act applies only to unfair methods of competition in interstate commerce, the Commission was without jurisdiction to enter an order against them under Count I of the complaint. For this contention they chiefly rely on Federal Trade Comm'n v. Bunte Bros., 312 U.S. 349. They also argue that for the same reason the Commission lacked jurisdiction to enforce against them the price discrimination charge in Count II of the complaint.
We cannot sustain this contention. The charge against these respondents was not that they, apart from the other respondents, had engaged in unfair methods of competition and price discriminations simply by making intrastate sales. Instead, the charge was, as supported by the Commission's findings, that these respondents in combination with others agreed to maintain a delivered price system in order to eliminate price competition in the sale of cement in interstate commerce. The combination, as found, includes the Institute and cement companies located in many different states. The Commission has further found that "In general, said corporate respondents
The Multiple Basing Point Delivered Price System. — Since the multiple basing point delivered price system of fixing prices and terms of cement sales is the nub of this controversy, it will be helpful at this preliminary stage to point out in general what it is and how it works. A brief reference to the distinctive characteristics of "factory" or "mill prices" and "delivered prices" is of importance to an understanding of the basing point delivered price system here involved.
Goods may be sold and delivered to customers at the seller's mill or warehouse door or may be sold free on board (f.o.b.) trucks or railroad cars immediately adjacent to the seller's mill or warehouse. In either event the actual cost of the goods to the purchaser is, broadly speaking, the seller's "mill price" plus the purchaser's cost of
The best known early example of a basing point price system was called "Pittsburgh plus." It related to the price of steel. The Pittsburgh price was the base price, Pittsburgh being therefore called a price basing point. In order for the system to work, sales had to be made only at delivered prices. Under this system the delivered price of steel from anywhere in the United States to a point of delivery anywhere in the United States was in general the Pittsburgh price plus the railroad freight rate from Pittsburgh to the point of delivery.
Several results obviously flow from use of a single basing point system such as "Pittsburgh plus" originally was. One is that the "delivered prices" of all producers in every locality where deliveries are made are always the same regardless of the producers' different freight costs. Another is that sales made by a non-base mill for delivery at different localities result in net receipts to the seller which vary in amounts equivalent to the "phantom freight" included in, or the "freight absorption" taken from the "delivered price."
As commonly employed by respondents, the basing point system is not single but multiple. That is, instead of one basing point, like that in "Pittsburgh plus," a number of basing point localities are used. In the multiple basing point system, just as in the single basing point system, freight absorption or phantom freight is an element
Alleged Bias of the Commission. — One year after the taking of testimony had been concluded and while these proceedings were still pending before the Commission, the respondent Marquette asked the Commission to disqualify itself from passing upon the issues involved. Marquette charged that the Commission had previously prejudged the issues, was "prejudiced and biased against the Portland cement industry generally," and that the industry and Marquette in particular could not receive a fair hearing from the Commission. After hearing oral argument the Commission refused to disqualify itself. This contention, repeated here, was also urged and rejected in the Circuit Court of Appeals one year before that court reviewed the merits of the Commission's order. Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. v. Federal Trade Comm'n, 147 F.2d 589.
Marquette introduced numerous exhibits intended to support its charges. In the main these exhibits were copies of the Commission's reports made to Congress or to the President, as required by § 6 of the Trade Commission Act. 15 U.S.C. § 46. 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. We therefore decide this contention, as did the Circuit Court of Appeals, on the assumption that such an opinion had been formed by the entire membership of the Commission as a result of its prior official investigations. But we also agree with that court's holding that this belief did not disqualify the Commission.
Moreover, Marquette's position, if sustained, would to a large extent defeat the congressional purposes which prompted passage of the Trade Commission Act. Had the entire membership of the Commission disqualified in the proceedings against these respondents, this complaint could not have been acted upon by the Commission or by any other government agency. Congress has provided for no such contingency. It has not directed that the Commission disqualify itself under any circumstances, has not provided for substitute commissioners should any of its members disqualify, and has not authorized any other government agency to hold hearings, make findings, and issue cease and desist orders in proceedings against unfair trade practices.
Marquette also seems to argue that it was a denial of due process for the Commission to act in these proceedings after having expressed the view that industry-wide use of the basing point system was illegal. A number of cases are cited as giving support to this contention. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, is among them. But it provides no support for the contention. In that case Tumey had been convicted of a criminal offense, fined, and committed to jail by a judge who had a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching his conclusion to convict. A criminal conviction by such a tribunal was held to violate procedural due process. But the Court there pointed out that most matters relating to judicial disqualification did not rise to a constitutional level. Id. at 523.
Neither the Tumey decision nor any other decision of this Court would require us to hold that it would be a violation of procedural due process for a judge to sit in
The Commission properly refused to disqualify itself. We thus need not review the additional holding of the Circuit Court of Appeals that Marquette's objection on the ground of the alleged bias of the Commission was filed too late in the proceedings before that agency to warrant consideration.
Alleged Errors in re Introduction of Evidence. — The complaint before the Commission, filed July 2, 1937, alleged that respondents had maintained an illegal combination for "more than 8 years last past." In the Circuit Court of Appeals and in this Court the Government treated its case on the basis that the combination began in August, 1929, when the respondent Cement Institute was organized. The Government introduced much evidence over respondents' objections, however, which showed the activities of the cement industry for many years prior to 1929, some of it as far back as 1902. It also introduced evidence as to respondents' activities from 1933 to May 27, 1935, much of which related to the preparation and administration of the NRA Code for the cement industry pursuant to the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195, held invalid by this Court
Respondents contend that the pre-1929 evidence, especially that prior to 1919, is patently inadmissible with reference to a 1929 combination, many of whose alleged members were non-existent in 1919. They also urge that evidence of activities during the NRA period was improperly admitted because § 5 of Title I of the NRA provided that any action taken in compliance with the code provisions of an industry should be "exempt from the provisions of the antitrust laws of the United States." And some of the NRA period testimony relating to basing point practices did involve references to code provisions. The Government contends that evidence of both the pre-1929 and the NRA period activities of members of the cement industry tends to show a continuous course of concerted efforts on the part of the industry, or at least most of it, to utilize the basing point system as a means to fix uniform terms and prices at which cement would be sold, and that the Commission had properly so regarded this evidence. The Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with respondents that the Commission had erroneously considered both the NRA period evidence and the pre-1929 evidence in making its findings of the existence of a combination among respondents.
We conclude that both types of evidence were admissible for the purpose of showing the existence of a continuing combination among respondents to utilize the basing point pricing system.
The Commission did not make its findings of post-1929 combination, in whole or in part, on the premise that
Furthermore, administrative agencies like the Federal Trade Commission have never been restricted by the
The foregoing likewise largely answers respondents' contention that there was error in the admission of a letter written by one Treanor in 1934 to the chairman of the NRA code authority for the cement industry. Treanor, who died prior to the filing of the complaint, was at the time president of one of the respondent companies and also an active trustee of the Institute. In the letter he stated among other things that the cement industry was one "above all others that cannot stand free competition, that must systematically restrain competition or be ruined." This statement was made as part of his criticism of the cement industry's publicity campaign in defense of the basing point system. The relevance of this statement indicating this Institute official's informed judgment is obvious. That it might be only his conclusion does not render the statement inadmissible in this administrative proceeding.
All contentions in regard to the introduction of testimony have been considered. None of them justify refusal to enforce this order.
The Old Cement Case. — This Court's opinion in Cement Mfrs. Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U.S. 588, known as the Old Cement case, is relied on by the respondents in almost every contention they present. We think it has little relevance, if any at all, to the issues in this case.
In that case the United States brought an action in the District Court to enjoin an alleged combination to violate
In the second place, individual conduct, or concerted conduct, which falls short of being a Sherman Act violation may as a matter of law constitute an "unfair method of competition" prohibited by the Trade Commission Act. A major purpose of that Act, as we have frequently said, was to enable the Commission to restrain practices as "unfair" which, although not yet having grown into Sherman Act dimensions would, most likely do so if left unrestrained. The Commission and the courts were to determine what conduct, even though it might then be short of a Sherman Act violation, was an "unfair method of competition." This general language was deliberately left to the "commission and the courts" for definition because it was thought that "There is no limit to human inventiveness in this field"; that consequently, a definition that fitted practices known to lead towards an unlawful restraint of trade today would not fit tomorrow's new inventions in the field; and that for Congress to try to keep its precise definitions abreast of this course of conduct
These marked differences between what a court must decide in a Sherman Act proceeding and the duty of the Commission in determining whether conduct is to be classified as an unfair method of competition are enough in and of themselves to make the Old Cement decision wholly inapplicable to our problem in reviewing the findings in this case. That basic problem is whether the Commission made findings of concerted action, whether those findings are supported by evidence, and if so whether the findings are adequate as a matter of law to sustain the Commission's conclusion that the multiple basing point system as practiced constitutes an "unfair method of competition," because it either restrains free competition or is an incipient menace to it.
Findings and Evidence. — It is strongly urged that the Commission failed to find, as charged in both counts of the complaint, that the respondents had by combination, agreements, or understandings among themselves utilized the multiple basing point delivered price system as a restraint to accomplish uniform prices and terms of sale. A subsidiary contention is that assuming the Commission did so find, there is no substantial evidence to support such a finding. We think that adequate findings of combination were made and that the findings have support in the evidence.
The Commission's findings of fact set out at great length and with painstaking detail numerous concerted activities carried on in order to make the multiple basing point system work in such way that competition in quality, price and terms of sale of cement would be non-existent, and that uniform prices, job contracts, discounts, and terms of sale would be continuously maintained. The Commission found that many of these activities
Thus we have a complaint which charged collective action by respondents designed to maintain a sales technique
Disposition of this question brings us to the related contention that there was no substantial evidence to support the findings. We might well dispose of the contention as this Court dismissed a like one with reference to evidence and findings in a civil suit brought under the Sherman Act in Sugar Institute v. United States, 297 U.S. 553, 601: "After a hearing of extraordinary length, in which no pertinent fact was permitted to escape consideration, the trial court subjected the evidence to a thorough and acute analysis which has left but slight room for debate over matters of fact. Our examination of the record discloses no reason for overruling the court's findings in any matter essential to our decision." In this case, which involves the evidence and findings of the Federal Trade Commission, we likewise see no reason for upsetting the essential findings of the Commission. Neither do we find it necessary to refer to all the voluminous testimony in this record which tends to support the Commission's findings.
Although there is much more evidence to which reference could be made, we think that the following facts shown by evidence in the record, some of which are in dispute, are sufficient to warrant the Commission's finding of concerted action.
When the Commission rendered its decision there were about 80 cement manufacturing companies in the United
During the depression in the 1930's, slow business prompted some producers to deviate from the prices fixed by the delivered price system. Meetings were held by other producers; an effective plan was devised to punish the recalcitrants and bring them into line. The plan was simple but successful. Other producers made the recalcitrant's plant an involuntary base point. The base price was driven down with relatively insignificant losses to the producers who imposed the punitive basing point, but with heavy losses to the recalcitrant who had to make all its sales on this basis. In one instance, where a producer had made a low public bid, a punitive base point price was put on its plant and cement was reduced 10¢ per barrel; further reductions quickly followed until the base price at which this recalcitrant had to sell its cement dropped to 75¢ per barrel, scarcely one-half of its former base price of $1.45. Within six weeks after the base price hit 75¢ capitulation occurred and the recalcitrant joined a portland cement association. Cement in that locality then bounced back to $1.15, later to $1.35, and finally to $1.75.
The foregoing are but illustrations of the practices shown to have been utilized to maintain the basing point price system. Respondents offered testimony that cement is a standardized product, that "cement is cement," that no differences existed in quality or usefulness, and that purchasers demanded delivered price quotations because
The Commission did not adopt the views of the economists produced by the respondents. It decided that even though competition might tend to drive the price of standardized products to a uniform level, such a tendency alone could not account for the almost perfect identity in prices, discounts, and cement containers which had prevailed for so long a time in the cement industry. The Commission held that the uniformity and absence of competition in the industry were the results of understandings or agreements entered into or carried out by concert of the Institute and the other respondents. It
These companies support their separate contentions for particularized consideration by pointing out among other things that there was record evidence which showed differences between many of their sales methods and those practiced by other respondents. Each says that there was no direct evidence to connect it with all of the practices found to have been used by the Institute and other respondents to achieve delivered price uniformity.
The record does show such differences as those suggested. It is correct to say, therefore, that the sales practices of these particular respondents, and perhaps
What these particular respondents emphasize does serve to underscore certain findings which show that some respondents were more active and influential in the combination than were others,
The evidence commonly applicable to these and the other respondents showed that all were members of the Institute and that the officers of some of these particular respondents were or had been officers of the Institute. We have already sustained findings that the Institute was organized to maintain the multiple basing point system as one of the "customs and usages" of the industry and that it participated in numerous activities intended to eliminate price competition through the collective efforts of the respondents. Evidence before the Commission also showed that the delivered prices of these respondents, like those of all the other respondents, were, with rare exceptions, identical with the delivered prices of all their competitors. Furthermore, there was evidence
Our conclusion is that there was evidence to support the Commission's findings that all of the respondents, including the California companies, Northwestern Portland and Superior Portland, Huron and Marquette, cooperated in carrying out the objectives of the basing point delivered price system.
Unfair Methods of Competition. — We sustain the Commission's holding that concerted maintenance of the basing point delivered price system is an unfair method of competition prohibited by the Federal Trade Commission Act. In so doing we give great weight to the Commission's conclusion, as this Court has done in other cases. Federal Trade Comm'n v. R.F. Keppel & Bro., 291 U.S. 304, 314; Federal Trade Comm'n v. Pacific States Paper Trade Assn., 273 U.S. 52, 63. In the Keppel case the Court called attention to the express intention of Congress to create an agency whose membership would at all times be experienced, so that its conclusions would be the result of an expertness coming from experience. We are persuaded that the Commission's long and close examination of the questions it here decided has provided it with precisely the experience that fits it for performance of its statutory duty. 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 Comm'n v. Raladam Co., 283 U.S. 643, 647, 650. And see Federal Trade Comm'n v. Raladam Co., 316 U.S. 149, 152.
We cannot say that the Commission is wrong in concluding that the delivered-price system as here used provides
The Price Discrimination Charge in Count Two. — The Commission found that respondents' combination to use the multiple basing point delivered price system had effected systematic price discrimination in violation of § 2 of the Clayton Act as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act. 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. § 13. Section 2 (a) of that Act declares it to "be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce . . . either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality . . . where the effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them. . . ." Section 2 (b) provides that proof of discrimination in price (selling the same kind of goods cheaper to one purchaser than to another) makes out a prima facie case of violation, but permits the seller to
The Commission held that the varying mill nets received by respondents on sales between customers in different localities constituted a "discrimination in price between different purchasers" within the prohibition of § 2 (a), and that the effect of this discrimination was the substantial lessening of competition between respondents. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the Commission on this count. It agreed that respondents' prices were unlawful insofar as they involved the collection of phantom freight, but it held that prices involving only freight absorption came within the "good faith" proviso of § 2 (b).
The respondents contend that the differences in their net returns from sales in different localities which result from use of the multiple basing point delivered price system are not price discriminations within the meaning of § 2 (a). If held that these net return differences are price discriminations prohibited by § 2 (a), they contend that the discriminations were justified under § 2 (b) because "made in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor." Practically all the arguments presented by respondents in support of their contentions were considered by this Court and rejected in 1945 in Corn Products Co. v. Federal Trade Comm'n, 324 U.S. 726, and in the related case of Federal Trade Comm'n v. Staley Co., 324 U.S. 746. As stated in the Corn Products opinion at 730, certiorari was granted in those two cases because the "questions involved" were "of importance in the administration of the Clayton Act in view of the widespread use of basing point price systems." For this reason the questions there raised were given thorough consideration. Consequently, we see no reason for again reviewing the questions that were there decided.
Corn Products Co. was engaged in the manufacture and sale of glucose. It had two plants, one in Chicago, one in Kansas City. Both plants sold "only at delivered prices, computed by adding to a base price at Chicago the published freight tariff from Chicago to the several points of delivery, even though deliveries are in fact made from their factory at Kansas City as well as from their Chicago factory." 324 U.S. at 729. This price system we held resulted in Corn Products Co. receiving from different purchasers different net amounts corresponding to differences in the amounts of phantom freight collected or of actual freight charges absorbed. We further held that "price discriminations are necessarily involved where
Respondents attempt to distinguish their multiple basing point pricing system from those previously held unlawful by pointing out that in some situations their system involves neither phantom freight nor freight absorption; for example, sales by a base mill at its base price plus actual freight from the mill to the point of delivery involve neither phantom freight nor freight absorption. But the Corn Products pricing system which was condemned by this Court related to a base mill, at Kansas City. The Court did not permit this fact to relieve the pricing system from application of § 2, or to require any modification of the Commission's order. So here, we could
Section 2 (b) permits a single company to sell one customer at a lower price than it sells to another if the price is "made in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor." But this does not mean that § 2 (b) permits a seller to use a sales system which constantly results in his getting more money for like goods from some customers than he does from others. We held to the contrary in the Staley case. There we said that the Act "speaks only of the seller's `lower' price and of that only to the extent that it is made `in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor." The Act thus places emphasis on individual competitive situations, rather than upon a general system of competition." Federal Trade Comm'n v. Staley, supra at 753. Each of the respondents, whether all its mills were basing points or not, sold some cement at prices determined by the basing point formula and governed by other base mills. Thus, all respondents to this extent adopted a discriminatory pricing system condemned by § 2. As this in itself was evidence of the employment of the multiple basing point system by the respondents as a practice rather than as a good faith effort to meet "individual competitive situations," we think the Federal Trade Commission correctly concluded that the use of this cement basing point system violated the Act. Nor can we discern under these circumstances any distinction between the "good faith" proviso as applied to a situation involving only phantom freight and one involving only freight absorption. Neither comes within its terms.
We hold that the Commission properly concluded that respondents' pricing system results in price discriminations.
The Order. — There are several objections to the Commission's cease and desist order. We consider the objections, having in mind that the language of its prohibitions should be clear and precise in order that they may be understood by those against whom they are directed. See Illinois Commerce Comm'n v. Thomson, 318 U.S. 675, 685. But we also have in mind that the Commission has a wide discretion generally in the choice of remedies to cope with trade problems entrusted to it by the Commission Act. Jacob Siegel Co. v. Federal Trade Comm'n, 327 U.S. 608, 611-613.
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.
In the present proceeding the Commission has exhibited the familiarity with the competitive problems before it which Congress originally anticipated the Commission would achieve from its experience. The order it has prepared is we think clear and comprehensive. At the same time the prohibitions in the order forbid no activities except those which if continued would directly aid in perpetuating the same old unlawful practices. Nor do we find merit to the charges of surplusage in the order's terms.
Most of the objections to the order appear to rest on the premise that its terms will bar an individual cement producer from selling cement at delivered prices such that its net return from one customer will be less than from another, even if the particular sale be made in good faith to meet the lower price of a competitor. The Commission disclaims that the order can possibly be so understood. Nor do we so understand it. As we read the order, all of its separate prohibiting paragraphs and sub-paragraphs,
Respondents have objected to the phrase "planned common course of action" in the preamble. The objection is twofold; first, that it adds nothing to the words that immediately follow it; and second, that if it does add anything, "the Commission should be required to state what this novel phrase means in this order and what it adds to the four words." It seems quite clear to us what the phrase means. It is merely an emphatic statement that the Commission is prohibiting concerted action — planned concerted action. The Commission chose a phrase perhaps more readily understood by businessmen than the accompanying legal words of like import.
Then there is objection to that phrase in the preamble which would prevent respondents, or any of them, from doing the prohibited things with "others not parties hereto." We see no merit in this objection. The Commission has found that the cement producers have from time to time secured the aid of others outside the industry who are not parties to this proceeding in carrying out their program for preserving the basing point pricing system as an instrument to suppress competition. Moreover, there will very likely be changes in the present
One other specific objection to the order will be noted. Paragraph 1 prohibits respondents from "quoting or selling cement pursuant to or in accordance with any other plan or system which results in identical price quotations or prices for cement at points of quotation or sale or to particular purchasers by respondents using such plan or system, or which prevents purchasers from finding any advantage in price in dealing with one or more of the respondents against any of the other respondents." This paragraph like all the others in the order is limited by the preamble which refers to concerted conduct in accordance with agreement or planned common course of action. The paragraph is merely designed to forbid respondents from acting in harmony to bring about national uniformity in whatever fashion they may seek by collective action to achieve that result. We think that no one would find ambiguity in this language who concluded in good faith to abandon the old practices. There is little difference in effect between paragraph 1 to which objection is here raised and paragraph 5 which was sustained as proper in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Beech-Nut Pkg. Co., 257 U.S. 441, 456 (1922), one of the first Trade Commission cases to come before this Court. Paragraph 5 in the Beech-Nut case read: ". . . by utilizing any other equivalent cooperative means of accomplishing the maintenance of prices fixed by the company."
Many other arguments have been presented by respondents. All have been examined, but we find them without merit.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
MR. JUSTICE BURTON, dissenting.
While this dissent is written with special reference to case No. 23 against The Cement Institute, et al., its conclusions apply to cases Nos. 23-34, all of which were considered together.
It is important to note that this Court has disagreed with the conclusions of the court below as to the material facts constituting the premise on which that court and this have based their respective conclusions. Accordingly, this Court has neither reversed nor directly passed upon the principal conclusion of law reached by the court below. The court below concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support a finding by the Federal Trade Commission of the existence of that combination among the respondents to restrain the competition in price that was charged in both counts of the complaint.
The absence of sufficient evidence to support the conclusions of the Commission was especially impressive in the cases concerning the central California group, the southern California group, the Washington-Oregon group
On the view of the evidence taken by the court below and by me, that evidence does not support the Commission's finding of the combination as charged. Unlike the Commission and the majority of this Court, the lower court and I, therefore, have faced the further issue presented by the Commission's charges unsupported by a finding of the alleged combination. This has led us to consider an issue quite different from that decided by this Court today. That issue lies within the long-established and widespread practice by individuals of bona fide competition by freight absorption with which practice Congress has declined to interfere, although asked
FootNotes
"The Commission concludes from the evidence of record and therefore finds that the capacity, tendency, and effect of the combination maintained by the respondents herein in the manner aforesaid and the acts and practices performed thereunder and in connection therewith by said respondents, as set out herein, has been and is to hinder, lessen, restrain, and suppress competition in the sale and distribution of cement in, among, and between the several States of the United States; to deprive purchasers of cement, both private and governmental, of the benefits of competition in price; to systematically maintain artificial and monopolistic methods and prices in the sale and distribution of cement, including common rate factors used and useful in the pricing of cement; to prevent purchasers from utilizing motortrucks or water carriers for the transportation of cement and from obtaining benefits which might accrue from the use of such transportation agencies; to require that purchases of cement be made on a delivered price basis, and to prevent and defeat efforts of purchasers to avoid this requirement; frequently to deprive agencies of the Federal Government of the benefits of all or a part of the lower land-grant rates available to such purchasers; to require certain agencies of the Federal Government to purchase their requirements of cement through dealers at higher prices than are available in direct purchases from manufacturers; to establish and maintain an agreed classification of customers who may purchase cement from manufacturers thereof; to maintain uniform terms and conditions of sale; to hinder and obstruct the sale of imported cement through restraints upon those who deal in such cement; and otherwise to promote and maintain their multiple basing-point delivered-price system and obstruct and defeat any form of competition which threatens or tends to threaten the continued use and maintenance of said system and the uniformity of prices created and maintained by its use." 37 F.T.C. at 257-258.
An abstract of the bids for 6,000 barrels of cement to the United States Engineer Office at Tucumcari, New Mexico, opened April 23, 1936, shows the following:
Name of Bidder Price per Bbl. Name of Bidder Price per Bbl. Monarch ............. $3.286854 Oklahoma .............. $3.286854 Ash Grove ........... 3.286854 Consolidated .......... 3.286854 Lehigh .............. 3.286854 Trinity ............... 3.286854 Southwestern ........ 3.286854 Lone Star ............. 3.286854 U.S. Portland Cement Co. .......... 3.286854 Colorado .............. 3.286854
All bids subject to 10¢ per barrel discount for payment in 15 days. (Com. Ex. 175-A.) See 157 F.2d at 576.
"These powers, partly administrative and partly quasi judicial, are of great importance and will bring both to the Attorney General and to the court the aid of special expert experience and training in matters regarding which neither the Department of Justice nor the courts can be expected to be proficient.
"With the exception of the Knight case, the Supreme Court has never failed to condemn and to break up any organization formed in violation of the Sherman law which has been brought to its attention; but the decrees of the court, while declaring the law satisfactorily as to the dissolution of the combinations, have apparently failed in many instances in their accomplishment simply because the courts and the Department of Justice have lacked the expert knowledge and experience necessary to be applied to the dissolution of the combinations and the reassembling of the divided elements in harmony with the spirit of the law." Sen. Rep. No. 597, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 12 (1914).
". . . As Paragraphs One to Five, inclusive, of Count II of this complaint the Commission hereby incorporates Paragraphs One to Five, inclusive, of Count I to precisely the same extent as if each and all of them were set forth in full and repeated verbatim in this Count." Count II, Paragraphs One to Five, inclusive, of complaint. 37 F.T.C. at pp. 102, 117.
"this were an ordinary proceeding we would return it to the Commission for the purpose of revising its findings if it could and so desired in the light of what we have said. However, we are confronted with what might be termed an extraordinary situation. As already observed, it will soon be ten years since this proceeding was initiated. . . . We think the case should be on its way up and not down. For this reason we shall not return it to the Commission but shall proceed to decide the legal issues involved." Id. at p. 553.
"The Commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations, . . . from using unfair methods of competition in commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce.
"(b) Whenever the Commission shall have reason to believe that any such person, partnership, or corporation has been or is using any unfair method of competition or unfair or deceptive act or practice in commerce, and if it shall appear to the Commission that a proceeding by it in respect thereof would be to the interest of the public, it shall issue and serve upon such person, partnership, or corporation a complaint stating its charges in that respect and containing a notice of a hearing upon a day and at a place therein fixed. . . . If upon such hearing the Commission shall be of the opinion that the method of competition or the act or practice in question is prohibited by this Act, it shall make a report in writing in which it shall state its findings as to the facts and shall issue and cause to be served on such person, partnership, or corporation an order requiring such person, partnership, or corporation to cease and desist from using such method of competition or such act or practice. . . ."
.....
52 Stat. 111-112, 15 U.S.C. § 45.
"(b) Upon proof being made, at any hearing on a complaint under this section, that there has been discrimination in price or services or facilities furnished, the burden of rebutting the prima-facie case thus made by showing justification shall be upon the person charged with a violation of this section, and unless justification shall be affirmatively shown, the Commission is authorized to issue an order terminating the discrimination: Provided, however, That nothing herein contained shall prevent a seller rebutting the prima-facie case thus made by showing that his lower price or the furnishing of services or facilities to any purchaser or purchasers was made in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor, or the services or facilities furnished by a competitor."
.....
49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. § 13.
"It is plain that under this order there is a violation of its provisions only in the event that there is a `planned common course of action, understanding, agreement, combination, or conspiracy' to which a respondent is a party to do something specified in the numbered paragraphs of the order. This is an essential qualification of the prohibitions of these paragraphs. The order therefore leaves each respondent free — provided he acts individually and uith that variability in action respecting particular competitive situations which is characteristic of genuine competitive endeavor and a free market — to absorb freight in order to meet a competitor's low price or tm sell at a delivered price.
"What the order does is to bar acting in concert in adopting, continuing, or implementing the multiple basing-point delivered-price system or any similar system which necessarily operates to suppress price competition. The order is aimed at uprooting the pricing system which has flourished by virtue of the agreement among respondents, charged and found, to stifle price competition by selling cement at identical prices.
"The error of the court below is epitomized in its statement that `this court is now urged to hold that the [multiple basing-point delivered-price] system is illegal per se, and to require that cement be sold on an f.o.b. plant basis'. . . . The system as such was not attacked; what was attacked was agreement to maintain and implement the system and to eliminate price competition.
". . . Had the Commission inferred agreement from the system alone, it might loosely be said that the system itself was attacked as illegal per se. But this is not what the Commission did. Its searching inquiry disclosed in specific detail the collective action which had been taken to implement and continue the system. And from all these facts, as well as the existence of the system itself, the Commission found combination among respondents to suppress price competition."
The statement by this Court, in its note 19, to the effect that the Court does not hold "that existence of a `combination' is an indispensable ingredient of an `unfair method of competition' under the Trade Commission Act" is accompanied by a citation which shows that that statement is one of general application and that it is not intended as a denial that the combination found by the Commission in this case is not a highly material and possibly decisive factor in this particular case.
". . . The Commission concludes from the evidence of record and therefore finds that the capacity, tendency, and effect of the combination maintained by the respondents herein in the manner aforesaid and the acts and practices performed thereunder and in connection therewith by said respondents, as set out herein, has been and is to hinder, lessen, restrain, and suppress competition in the sale and distribution of cement in, among, and between the several States of the United States; to deprive purchasers of cement, both private and governmental, of the benefits of competition in price; to systematically maintain artificial and monopolistic methods and prices in the sale and distribution of cement, including common rate factors used and useful in the pricing of cement;. . . ." 37 F.T.C. at p. 257.
The Commission followed this Paragraph Twenty-six immediately with the following conclusion of law:
"The aforesaid combination and acts and practices of respondents pursuant thereto and in connection therewith, as hereinabove found, under the conditions and circumstances set forth, constitute unfair methods of competition in commerce within the intent and meaning of the Federal Trade Commission Act; and the discriminations in price by respondents, as hereinabove set out, constitute violations of subsection (a) of Section 2 of an act of Congress entitled `An act to supplement existing laws against unlawful restraints and monopolies, and for other purposes,' approved October 15, 1914 (the Clayton Act), as amended by act approved June 19, 1936 (the Robinson-Patman Act)." Id. at p. 258.
Calaveras Cement Company,
Pacific Portland Cement Company,
Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company,
Yosemite Portland Cement Corporation.
The southern California group to:
California Portland Cement Company,
Monolith Portland Cement Company,
Riverside Cement Company,
Southwestern Portland Cement Company (Victorville, California, plant).
The Washington-Oregon group to:
Beaver Portland Cement Company,
Lehigh Portland Cement Company (Metaline Falls, Washington, plant),
Northwestern Portland Cement Company,
Oregon Portland Cement Company,
Spokane Portland Cement Company,
Superior Portland Cement, Inc.
"Some of the respondents have been parties to substantially all of these activities; other respondents have participated in a lesser degree, or fully or partially for shorter periods of time; other respondents have been mere followers, adopting and supporting the practices of their more active associates; and a few respondents have from time to time, for various reasons, participated only reluctantly in some of the practices, and have occasionally opposed for a time particular instances of group action." Commission's "Findings as to Facts and Conclusion," Paragraph Six (a). 37 F.T.C. at p. 144.
"In our judgment, the question as to whether the basing point price system should be declared illegal rests clearly within the legislative domain. We know of no criticism so often and so forcibly directed at courts, particularly Federal courts, as their propensity for usurping the functions of Congress. If this pricing system which Congress has over the years steadfastly refused to declare illegal, although vigorously urged to do so, is now to be outlawed by the courts, it will mark the high tide in judicial usurpation." Aetna Portland Cement Co. v. Federal Trade Comm'n, supra, at p. 573.
See §§ 1 and 2, Sherman Antitrust Act, approved July 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 2; § 5, Federal Trade Commission Act, approved September 26, 1914, 38 Stat. 719; § 2, Clayton Act, approved October 15, 1914, 38 Stat. 730; § 2, Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, approved June 19, 1936, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. § 13; § 5, Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended, March 21, 1938, 52 Stat. 111, 15 U.S.C. § 45. See Bill "To Prevent Unnecessary and Wasteful Cross-Hauling" introduced by Senator Wheeler in 1936 banning basing-point systems by statute, but not reported out of Committee. Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 4055, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. (1936), and see p. 325. See also, H.R. Rep. No. 2287, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 14 (1936), and debates upon the Robinson-Patman Bill, 80 Cong. Rec. 8102, 8118, 8140, 8223-8224 (1936).
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