MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brings this suit under § 4 of the Sherman Act to enjoin United States Steel Corporation and its subsidiaries from purchasing the assets of the largest independent steel fabricator on the West Coast on the ground that such acquisition would violate §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
The underlying facts in the case are set forth in the findings of the trial court, and with a few exceptions those findings are not disputed by the government. We rely chiefly on the findings to indicate the nature of the commerce here in question and the extent to which competition would be affected by the challenged contract.
The steel production involved in this case may be spoken of as being divided into two stages: the production of rolled steel products and their fabrication into finished steel products. Rolled steel products consist of steel plates, shapes, sheets, bars, and other unfinished steel products and are in turn made from ingots by means of rolling mills. The steel fabrication involved herein may also be divided into structural fabrication and plate fabrication. Fabricated structural steel products consist of building framework, bridges, transmission towers, and similar permanent structures, and are made primarily from rolled steel shapes, although plates and other rolled steel products may also be employed. Fabricated plate products, on the other hand, consist of pressure vessels, tanks, welded pipe, and similar products made principally from rolled steel plates, although shapes and bars are also occasionally used. Both plate and structural fabricated products are made to specifications for a particular purpose; fabricated products do not include standard products made by repetitive processes in the manufacture of general steel merchandise such as wire, nails, bolts, and
The complaint lists four defendants: Columbia Steel Company, Consolidated Steel Corporation, United States Steel Corporation, and United States Steel Corporation of Delaware. United States Steel and its subsidiaries engage in the business of producing rolled steel products and in structural fabrication, but do no plate fabrication work. Consolidated Steel, the sale of whose assets the government seeks to enjoin, is engaged only in structural fabrication and plate fabrication. United States Steel with its subsidiaries is the largest producer of rolled steel products in the United States, with a total investment of more than a billion and a half dollars. During the ten-year period 1937-1946 United States Steel produced almost exactly a third of all rolled sales products produced in the United States, and average sales for that period were nearly a billion and a half dollars. In the five-year period 1937-1941, average sales were a little over a billion dollars. Consolidated, by contrast, had plants whose depreciated value was less than ten million dollars. During the five-year period 1937-1941, Consolidated had average sales of only twenty million dollars, and the United States Steel committee which negotiated the terms of the purchase of Consolidated estimated that Consolidated's sales in the future would run to twenty-two million dollars annually and agreed with Consolidated on a purchase price of slightly in excess of eight million dollars. During the war Consolidated produced over a
Columbia Steel, a wholly-owned subsidiary of United States Steel, has been the largest rolled steel producer in the Pacific Coast area since 1930, with plants in Utah and California, and has also served as selling agent for other rolled steel subsidiaries of United States Steel, and for two subsidiaries of that company engaged in structural fabrication, the American Bridge Company at Pittsburgh and the Virginia Bridge Company at Roanoke, Virginia, though neither it nor any other subsidiary of United States Steel in the Consolidated market area was a fabricator of any kind. National Tube Company, another United States Steel subsidiary, sells pipe and tubing. Consolidated has structural fabricating plants near Los Angeles and at Orange, Texas, and plate fabricating facilities in California and Arizona. Consolidated has sold its products during the past ten years in eleven states, referred to hereafter as the Consolidated market: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. It is that market which the government views as significant in determining the extent of competition between United States Steel and Consolidated. It is not the usual Pacific
Rolled steel products have traditionally been sold on a basing point system.
The urgent wartime demand for steel prompted the government to construct new rolled steel plants in the West. The largest of these plants was erected at Geneva, Utah, at a cost of nearly $200,000,000, and was designed, constructed, and operated by United States Steel for the account of the government. The plant had an annual capacity of more than 1,200,000 tons of ingots, which in turn could be employed to make 700,000 tons of plates and 250,000 tons of shapes. Another large plant was erected by the government at Fontana, California. This is now operated through arrangements of private parties with the government. In January 1945 United States Steel considered the acquisition of the Geneva plant, but because of the speculative nature of the venture and attacks by people within and without the government, United States Steel decided not to submit a bid and notified the Defense Plant Corporation to that effect on August 8, 1945. Shortly thereafter the Surplus Property Administrator wrote to Benjamin F. Fairless, President of United States Steel, advising him that a bid by United States Steel would be welcomed. On May 1, 1946, United States Steel submitted a bid for the Geneva plant of $47,500,000. The terms of the bid provided that United
On May 23, 1946, the War Assets Administration announced that the bid of United States Steel was accepted. An accompanying memorandum discussed in detail the six bids which had been received, and concluded that United States Steel's bid was the most advantageous. The other bids were found unacceptable for a number of reasons; either the bidder could offer no assurance of his financial responsibility or his ability to operate the plant, or the price offered was too low, or the bidder requested
On June 17, 1946, the Attorney General advised the War Assets Administration that the proposed sale did not in his opinion constitute a violation of the antitrust laws, and the sale was consummated two days thereafter. The opinion of the Attorney General was requested in accordance with § 20 of the Surplus Property Act of 1944, 58 Stat. 765, 775, which requires such procedure when government plants costing more than $1,000,000 are being sold. That section provides that nothing in the Surplus Property Act "shall impair, amend, or modify the anti-trust laws of limit and prevent their application to persons" who buy property under the Act. The Attorney General noted that the ingot capacity of United States Steel had declined from 35.3% of the total national capacity in 1939 to 31.4% in 1946, and that if the Geneva plant were acquired, the percentage would be increased to 32.7%. Considering only the Pacific Coast and Mountain states, the acquisition of Geneva, the Attorney General said, would increase United States Steel's percentage of capacity in that area from 17.3% to 39%. United States Steel, however, estimated that
Prior to the sale of the Geneva plant, Alden G. Roach, President of Consolidated, approached Fairless of United States Steel and indicated that he would like to sell the business of Consolidated. Roach also had conversations with representatives of Bethlehem and Kaiser with regard to the same end. Roach mentioned the subject again to Fairless in February or March of 1946, and Fairless replied that United States Steel was restudying its decision not to bid on the Geneva plant, and did not want to discuss the purchase of Consolidated until the Geneva issue was decided. After the sale of Geneva was effected in June, Fairless spoke again with Roach and arranged to have a committee from United States Steel make an investigation of the Consolidated plants in August. The committee reported that it would cost $14,000,000 and take three years to construct plants equivalent to those owned by Consolidated, and that the Consolidated properties had a depreciated value of $9,800,000. After further negotiations the parties agreed on a price of approximately $8,250,000, and a purchase agreement was executed on December 14 according to which Columbia agreed to buy the physical assets of Consolidated and four subsidiaries. Fairless testified on the witness stand that United States Steel's purpose in purchasing Consolidated was to assure a market for plates and shapes produced at Geneva, and
I.
The theory of the United States in bringing this suit is that the acquisition of Consolidated constitutes an illegal restraint of interstate commerce because all manufacturers except United States Steel will be excluded from the business of supplying Consolidated's requirements of rolled steel products, and because competition now existing between Consolidated and United States Steel in the sale of structural fabricated products and pipe will be eliminated. In addition, the government alleges that the acquisition of Consolidated, viewed in the light of the previous series of acquisitions by United States Steel, constitutes an attempt to monopolize the production and sale of fabricated steel products in the Consolidated market. The appellees contend that the amount of competition which will be eliminated is so insignificant that the restraint effected is a reasonable restraint not an attempt to monopolize and not prohibited by the Sherman Act.
We turn first to the charge that the proposed purchase will lessen competition by excluding producers of rolled steel products other than United States Steel from supplying the requirements of Consolidated. Over the ten-year period from 1937 to 1946 Consolidated purchased over two million tons of rolled steel products, including the abnormally high wartime requirements. Whatever amount of rolled steel products Consolidated uses in the future will be supplied insofar as possible from other subsidiaries of United States Steel, and other producers of rolled steel products will lose Consolidated as a prospective customer.
The parties are in sharp dispute as to the size and nature of the market for rolled steel products with which Consolidated's consumption is to be compared. The appellees argue that rolled steel products are sold on a national scale, and that for the major producers the entire United States should be regarded as the market. Viewed from this standpoint, Consolidated's requirements are an insignificant fraction of the total market, less than 1/2 of 1%. The government argues that the market must be more narrowly drawn, and that the relevant market to be considered is the eleven-state area in which Consolidated sells its products, and further that in that area by considering only the consumption of structural and plate fabricators a violation of the Sherman Act has been established. If all sales of rolled steel products in the Consolidated market are considered. Consolidated's purchases of two million tons represent a little more than
Another difficulty is that the record furnishes little indication as to the propriety of considering plates and shapes as a market distinct from other rolled steel products. If rolled steel producers can make other products as easily as plates and shapes, then the effect of the removal of Consolidated's demand for plates and shapes must be measured not against the market for plates and shapes alone, but for all comparable rolled products. The record suggests, but does not conclusively indicate, that rolled steel producers can make other products interchangeably with shapes and plates, and that therefore
We read the record as showing that the trial court did not accept the theory that the comparable market was restricted to the demand for plates and shapes in the Consolidated area, but did accept the government's theory that the market was to be restricted to the total demand for rolled steel products in the eleven-state area. On that basis the trial court found that the steel requirements of Consolidated represented "a small part" of the consumption in the Consolidated area, that Consolidated was not a "substantial market" for rolled steel producers selling in competition with United States Steel, and that the acquisition of Consolidated would not injure any competitor of United States Steel engaged in the production and sale of rolled steel products in the Consolidated market or elsewhere. We recognize the difficulty of laying down a rule as to what areas or products are competitive, one with another. In this case and on this record we have circumstances that strongly indicate to us that rolled steel production and consumption in the Consolidated marketing area is the competitive area and product for consideration.
In analyzing the injury to competition resulting from the withdrawal of Consolidated as a purchaser of rolled steel products, we have been considering the acquisition of Consolidated as a step in the vertical integration of United States Steel. Regarded as a seller of fabricated steel products rather than as a purchaser of rolled steel products, however, the acquisition of Consolidated may be regarded as a step in horizontal integration as well, since United States Steel will broaden its facilities for
We turn first to the field of fabricated structural steel products. As in the case of rolled steel, the appellees claim that structural fabricators sell on a national scale, and that Consolidated's production must be measured against all structural fabricators. An index of the position of Consolidated as a structural fabricator is shown by its bookings for the period 1937-1942, as reported by the American Institute of Steel Construction. During that period total bookings in the entire country were nearly 10,000,000 tons, of which Consolidated's share was only 84,533 tons. The government argues that competition is to be measured with reference to the eleven-state area in which Consolidated sells its products. Viewed on that basis, total bookings for the limited area for the six-year period were 1,665,698, of which United States Steel's share was 17% and Consolidated's 5%. The government claims that Consolidated has become a more important factor since that period, and alleges that bookings for 1946 in the Consolidated market were divided among 90 fabricators, of which United States Steel had 13% and Consolidated and Bethlehem Steel each had 11%. The next largest structural fabricators had 9%,
Apart from the question of the geographical size of the market, the appellees urge that the bookings for fabricated structural steel products are of little significance
The government also argues that competition will be eliminated between Consolidated and National Tube in the sale of pipe. In this field we have no difficulty in determining the geographical scope of the market to be considered in determining the extent of competition, since the government claims that Consolidated and National Tube compete on a nation-wide scale in the field of large diameter pipe for oil and gas pipelines. Other types of pipe made by the two concerns are apparently not competitive as the government does not contest this assertion of the appellees.
The opinion of the trial court summarized the facts outlined above, and concluded that there was no substantial competition between National Tube and Consolidated in the sale of pipe; one of the findings went even further, stating that the two companies "do not compete" in the sale of their pipe products.
The trial court also concluded that the government had failed to prove that United States Steel had attempted to monopolize the business of fabricating steel products in the Consolidated market in violation of § 2. The trial judge apparently was of the opinion that since the purchase of Consolidated did not constitute a violation of § 1, it could not constitute a violation of § 2, since every attempt to monopolize must also constitute an illegal restraint. In his findings the trial judge concluded that the purchase agreement was entered into "for sound business reasons" and with no intent to monopolize the production and sale of fabricated steel products.
II.
In support of its position that the proposed contract violates § 1 of the Sherman Act, the government urges that all the legal conclusions of the district court were erroneous. It is argued that, without regard to the percentages of consumption of rolled steel products by Consolidated just considered, the acquisition by United States Steel of Consolidated violates the Sherman Act. Such an arrangement, it is claimed, excludes other producers of rolled steel products from the Consolidated market and constitutes an illegal restraint per se to which the rule of reason is inapplicable. Or, phrasing the argument differently, the government's contention seems to be that the acquisition of facilities which provide a controlled market for the output of the Geneva plant is a process of vertical integration and invalid per se under the Sherman Act. The acquisition of Consolidated, it is pointed out, would also eliminate competition between Consolidated and the subsidiaries of United States Steel in the sale of structural steel products and pipe products, and would eliminate potential competition from Consolidated in the sale of other steel products. We also note that the acquisition of Consolidated will bring United States Steel for the first time into the field of plate fabrication.
A. We first lay to one side a possible objection to measuring the injury to competition by reference to a market which is less than nation-wide in area. The Sherman Act is not limited to eliminating restraints whose effects cover the entire United States; we have consistently held that where the relevant competitive market covers only a small area the Sherman Act may be invoked to prevent unreasonable restraints within that area. In United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, we sustained the validity of a complaint which alleged that the defendants had monopolized the cab operating business in four large
B. The government relies heavily on United States v. Yellow Cab Co., supra, to support its argument that the withdrawal of Consolidated as a possible consumer for the
We do not construe our holding in the Yellow Cab case to make illegal the acquisition by United States Steel of this outlet for its rolled steel without consideration of its effect on the opportunities of other competitor producers
A subsidiary will in all probability deal only with its parent for goods the parent can furnish. That fact, however, does not make the acquisition invalid. When other elements of Sherman Act violations are present, the fact of corporate relationship is material and can be considered in the determination of whether restraint or attempt to restrain exists. That this is the teaching of the Yellow Cab case is indicated by the following quotation:
That view is in accord with previous decisions of the Court.
In United States v. Paramount Pictures, 334 U.S. 131, we were presented with a situation in which the government charged that vertical integration was illegal under the Sherman Act. We held that control by the major producer-distributors over nearly three-quarters of the first-run theaters in cities with population over 100,000 was not of itself illegal, and we remanded the case to the district court for further findings. In outlining the factors which we considered to be significant in determining the legality of vertical integration, we emphasized the importance of characterizing the nature of the market to be served, and the leverage on the market which the particular vertical integration creates or makes possible. A second test which we considered important in the
It seems clear to us that vertical integration, as such without more, cannot be held violative of the Sherman Act. It is an indefinite term without explicit meaning. Even in the iron industry, where could a line be drawn — at the end of mining the ore, the production of the pig-iron or steel ingots, when the rolling mill
It is not for courts to determine the course of the Nation's economic development. Economists may recommend, the legislative and executive branches may chart legal courses by which the competitive forces of business can seek to reduce costs and increase production so that a higher standard of living may be available to all. The evils and dangers of monopoly and attempts to monopolize that grow out of size and efforts to eliminate others from markets, large or small, have caused Congress and the Executive to regulate commerce and trade in many respects. But no direction has appeared of a public policy that forbids, per se, an expansion of facilities of an existing company to meet the needs of new markets of a community, whether that community is nation-wide or county-wide. On the other hand, the courts have been given by Congress wide powers in monopoly regulation. The very broadness of terms such as restraint of trade, substantial competition and purpose to monopolize have placed upon courts the responsibility to apply the Sherman Act so as to avoid the evils at which Congress aimed. The basic industries, with few exceptions, do not approach in America a cartelized form. If businesses are to be forbidden from entering into different stages of production that order must come from Congress, not the courts.
Applying the standards laid down in the Paramount case, we conclude that the so-called vertical integration
C. We turn now to a discussion of the significance, as to possible violation of the Sherman Act, of the fact that Consolidated has been a competitor of United States Steel in structural steel fabrication and in the manufacture of pipe. The same tests which measure the legality of vertical integration by acquisition are also applicable to the acquisition of competitors in identical or similar lines of merchandise. It is first necessary to delimit the market in which the concerns compete and then determine the extent to which the concerns are in competition in that market. If such acquisition results in or is aimed at unreasonable restraint, then the purchase is forbidden by the Sherman Act. In determining what constitutes unreasonable restraint, we do not think the dollar volume is in itself of compelling significance; we look rather to the percentage of business controlled, the strength of the remaining competition, whether the action springs from business requirements or purpose to monopolize, the probable development of the industry, consumer demands, and other characteristics of the market. We do not undertake to prescribe any set of percentage figures by which to measure the reasonableness of a corporation's enlargement of its activities by the purchase of the assets of a
The United States makes the point that the acquisition of Consolidated would preclude and restrain substantial potential competition in the production and sale of other steel products than fabricated structural steel and pipe. Force is added to this contention by the fact, adverted to above at pages 500 and 512, that United States Steel does no plate fabrication while Consolidated does. By plate fabrication Consolidated produces many articles not now produced by United States Steel. We mention, as examples, boilers, gas tanks, smoke stacks, storage tanks and barges. Attention is also called to the war activities of Consolidated in steel shipbuilding as indicative of its potentialities as a competitor. We have noted, pp. 500-501, supra, that this construction was under government direction and financing. We agree that any acquisition of fabricating equipment eliminates some potential competition from anyone who might own or acquire such facilities. We agree, too, with the government's position that potential competition from producers of presently non-competitive articles as well as the possibility that acquired facilities may be used in the future for the production of new articles in competition with others may be taken into consideration in weighing the effect of any acquisition of assets on restraint of trade.
The government's argument, however, takes us into highly speculative situations. Steel ship construction for war purposes was an enterprise undertaken at government
We conclude that in this case the government has failed to prove that the elimination of competition between Consolidated and the structural fabricating subsidiaries of United States Steel constitutes an unreasonable restraint. If we make the doubtful assumption that United States Steel could be expected in the future to sell 13% of the total of structural steel products in the Consolidated trade area and that Consolidated could be expected to sell 11%, we conclude that where we have the present unusual conditions of the western steel industry and in view of the facts of this case as developed at pages 512 to 516, of this opinion, it can not be said there would be an unreasonable restraint of trade. To hold this does not imply that additional acquisitions of fabricating facilities for structural steel would not become monopolistic. Notwithstanding some differences as to the business of Consolidated and United States Steel in respect to the character of structural steel products fabricated by each, there is
We likewise conclude that the elimination of competition between Consolidated and National Tube (a United States Steel subsidiary) does not constitute an unreasonable restraint. Competition at the time of the contract was restricted to the sale of large diameter pipe for oil and gas pipelines, see pages 516 to 518, supra, and the only indication in the record that competition in pipe would exist in a broader field in the future is contained in the suggestion, without proof or specification, that Consolidated through technological advances or business expansion, might produce a wider range of pipe sizes and types. This is not enough to persuade us that the purchase will unduly restrain trade in pipe. The record does show that in three instances Consolidated and National Tube each supplied pipe for a new pipeline. It is clear that these line pipe contracts were obtained by Consolidated in a seller's market. We are given nothing as to the national production of oil and gas trunk line pipe or the relation of the pipe sold by Consolidated and National Tube to this production. The government does not contest appellees' statement that Consolidated pipe for this purpose is substantially more expensive than seamless pipe, and in the absence of a showing that welded pipe has advantages over seamless pipe to compensate for the increased cost or that Consolidated's production costs may be expected
The government cites four antitrust cases involving railroads to support its argument that control by one competitor over another violates the Sherman Act, even though the percentage of business for which they compete may be small.
III.
We turn last to the allegation of the government that United States Steel has attempted to monopolize the production and sale of fabricated steel products in the Consolidated market. We think that the trial court applied too narrow a test to this charge; even though
We look not only to those acquisitions, however, but also to the latest acquisition — the government-owned plant at Geneva. We think that last acquisition is of significance in ascertaining the intent of United States Steel in acquiring Consolidated.
We have dealt with the objections to this purchase because of the exclusion of other rolled steel producers from supplying Consolidated's demand for that product and because of the alleged restraint of trade involved in the extension of United States Steel's fabricating and pipe commerce. It has been necessary to treat these arguments separately so as to isolate the facts and figures which convince us that these objections do not rise to the level of proving a violation of law. It only need be added that we have also considered the various items of objection in the aggregate and in the light of the charge of
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK, MR. JUSTICE MURPHY, and MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE concur, dissenting.
This is the most important antitrust case which has been before the Court in years. It is important because it reveals the way of growth of monopoly power — the precise phenomenon at which the Sherman Act was aimed. Here we have the pattern of the evolution of the great trusts. Little, independent units are gobbled up by bigger ones. At times the independent is driven to the wall and surrenders. At other times any number of "sound business reasons" appear why the sale to or merger with the trust should be made.
We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse of Bigness shows how size can become a menace — both industrial and social. It can be an industrial menace because it creates gross inequalities against existing or putative competitors. It can be a social menace —
The Court forgot this lesson in United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U.S. 417, and in United States v.
This acquisition can be dressed up (perhaps legitimately) in terms of an expansion to meet the demands of a business which is growing as a result of superior and enterprising management.
But competition is never more irrevocably eliminated than by buying the customer for whose business the industry has been competing. The business of Consolidated amounts to around $22,000,000 annually. The competitive purchases by Consolidated are over $5,000,000 a year. I do not see how it is possible to say that $5,000,000 of commerce is immaterial. It plainly is not de minimis. And it is the character of the restraint which § 1 of the Act brands as illegal, not the amount of commerce affected. Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U.S. 38; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 225, n. 59; United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, 225. At least it can be said here, as it was in International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392, 396, that the volume of business restrained by this contract is not insignificant or insubstantial. United States Steel does not consider
It is unrealistic to measure Consolidated's part of the market by determining its proportion of the national market. There is no safeguarding of competition in the theory that the bigger the national market the less protection will be given those selling to the smaller components thereof. That theory would allow a producer to absorb outlets upon which small enterprises with restricted marketing facilities depend. Those outlets, though statistically unimportant from the point of view of the national market, could be a matter of life and death to small, local enterprises.
The largest market which must be taken for comparison is the market actually reached by the company which is being absorbed. In this case Consolidated's purchases of rolled steel products are a little over 3 per cent of that market. By no standard — United States Steel's or its western competitors — can that percentage be deemed immaterial. Yet consideration of the case from that viewpoint puts the public interest phase of the acquisition in the least favorable light. A surer test of the impact of the acquisition on competition is to be determined not only by consideration of the actual markets reached by Consolidated but also by the actual purchases which it makes. Its purchases were predominantly of plates and shapes — 76 per cent from 1937-1941. This was in 1937 13 per cent of the total in the Consolidated market. That comparison is rejected by the Court or at least discounted on the theory that competitors presently selling to Consolidated can probably convert from plates and shapes to other forms of rolled steel products. But a surer test of the effect on competition is the actual business of which
It is, of course, immaterial that a purpose or intent to achieve the result may not have been present. The holding of the cases from United States v. Patten, 226 U.S. 525, 543, to United States v. Griffith, 334 U.S. 100, is that the requisite purpose or intent is present if monopoly or restraint of trade results as a direct and necessary consequence of what was done. We need not hold that vertical integration is per se unlawful in order to strike down what is accomplished here. The consequence of the deliberate, calculated purchase for purpose of control over this substantial share of the market can no more be avoided here than it was in United States v. Reading Co., 253 U.S. 26, 57, and in United States v. Yellow Cab Co., supra. I do not stop to consider the effect of the acquisition on competition in the sale of fabricated steel products. The monopoly of this substantial market for rolled steel products is in itself an unreasonable restraint of trade under § 1 of the Act.
The result might well be different if Consolidated were merging with or being acquired by an independent West Coast producer for the purpose of developing an integrated operation. The purchase might then be part of an intensely practical plan to put together an independent western unit of the industry with sufficient resources and strength to compete with the giants of the industry. Approval of this acquisition works in precisely the opposite direction. It makes dim the prospects that the western steel industry will be free from the control of the eastern giants. United States Steel, now that it owns the Geneva plant, has over 51 per cent of the rolled steel
FootNotes
§ 1. "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal: . . . Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy declared by sections 1-7 of this title to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $5,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."
§ 2. "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $5,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."
§ 4. "The several district courts of the United States are invested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of sections 1-7 of this title; and it shall be the duty of the several district attorneys of the United States, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations. . . ."
"During the war years, acting under Government sponsorship, Consolidated constructed ships for defense and war purposes for various Government procurement agencies but it is no longer engaged in this field. Consolidated's war work was confined to ship and ordnance construction with Government furnished facilities, all of which have now been abandoned. Consolidated Shipyards, Inc., a Consolidated subsidiary operating a small boat yard, has disposed of its plant to a group of real estate speculators. There is, therefore, no competition between U.S. Steel and Consolidated in the shipbuilding business."
In 1941 the Temporary National Economic Committee proposed that § 7 be amended to apply to acquisition of assets and to require prior approval by the Federal Trade Commission. See Comment, 57 Yale L.J. 613, for a description of the bills which have been introduced before Congress to carry out these recommendations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Industry | U.S. Steel | Estimated | | production | subsidiaries | consumption | Year | all rolled | production | all rolled | | steel products | all rolled | steel products | | | steel products | 11 states | -------------------|----------------|----------------|----------------| 1937 _____________ | 38,345,158 | 14,097,666 | 4,362,900 | 1938 _____________ | 21,356,398 | 7,315,506 | 2,670,000 | 1939 _____________ | 34,955,175 | 11,707,251 | 3,630,000 | 1940 _____________ | 45,965,971 | 15,013,749 | 4,337,990 | 1941 _____________ | 60,942,979 | 20,416,604 | 6,008,757 | 1942 _____________ | 60,591,052 | 20,615,137 | 8,489,204 | 1943 _____________ | 62,210,261 | 20,147,616 | 10,124,831 | 1944 _____________ | 63,250,519 | 21,052,179 | 9,587,503 | 1945 _____________ | 56,602,322 | 18,410,264 | 7,232,590 | 1946 _____________ | 48,993,777 | 15,181,719 | 6,000,000 | |----------------|----------------|----------------| Total ______ | 493,213,612 | 163,957,691 | 62,443,775 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- | U.S. Steel | | subsidiaries | Consolidated's | shipment of all | purchases all Year | rolled steel | rolled steel | production into | products | the 11 States | -------------------|------------------|---------------- 1937 _____________ | 1,556,085 | 103,286 1938 _____________ | 1,046,287 | 44,050 1939 _____________ | 1,434,383 | 69,862 1940 _____________ | 1,686,129 | 117,644 1941 _____________ | 2,441,840 | 163,428 1942 _____________ | 3,181,358 | 339,711 1943 _____________ | 3,706,886 | 404,180 1944 _____________ | 3,495,231 | 390,532 1945 _____________ | 2,378,112 | 225,273 1946 _____________ | 1,810,982 | 178,669 |------------------|---------------- Total ______ | 22,737,293 | 2,036,635 -------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Bookings | Percent Company | Location | (net tons) | of | | | total ----------------------------------|-------------------|------------|-------- | | | All companies ___________________ | _________________ | 336,717 | 100.0 | |------------|-------- United States Steel Corp ________ | Pittsburgh, Pa __ | 44,083 | 12.9 Consolidated Steel Corp _________ | Los Angeles, | | | Calif ___________ | 36,142 | 10.6 Bethlehem Steel Co ______________ | Bethlehem, Pa ___ | 36,047 | 10.6 Mosher Steel Co _________________ | Houston, Tex ____ | 29,814 | 8.7 Chicago Bridge & Iron Co ________ | Chicago, III ____ | 21,588 | 6.3 Isaacson Iron Works _____________ | Seattle, Wash ___ | 10,656 | 3.1 Kansas City Structural Co _______ | Kansas City, | | | Kans ____________ | 10,051 | 2.9 Midwest Steel & Iron Works Co ___ | Denver, Colo ____ | 9,306 | 2.7 Northwest Steel Rolling Mills, | | | Inc _____________________________ | Seattle, Wash ___ | 9,000 | 2.6 Structural Steel & Forge Co _____ | Salt Lake City, | | | Utah ___________ | 8,300 | 2.4 | |------------|-------- Total 10 companies ________ | _________________ | 214,987 | 63.0 Remaining 80 companies ____ | _________________ | 121,730 | 37.0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The table quoted includes a correction as to Consolidated's bookings which was made after the exhibit was introduced.
Since the record was made up in this case, United States Steel has announced that the mill price for Geneva steel products has been reduced $3 per ton, effective May 1, 1948. That amount represented the previously existing mill price differential of Geneva steel products over products produced at Pittsburgh, Chicago, Gary, and Birmingham. U.S. Steel Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2, May 1948, p. 6.
The above figures indicate that Consolidated customarily bid on lighter types of work; the average tonnage for Consolidated's bids was 90 tons, whereas the average tonnage for United States Steel was 528 tons. The 166 jobs on which both companies submitted bids were considerably larger in volume, averaging 737 tons.
"A. The type of pipe made by Consolidated is electric weld pipe known as fusion weld or are weld pipe in sizes from 4-inch up to say 30-inch. We don't make any electric weld pipe. The pipe that Consolidated make other than the pipe larger than 26-inch is made primarily for and sold to the water works industry, and our pipe is sold primarily to the oil and gas industry. We don't make the same type of pipe, and the sizes which we manufacture and the gages and the lengths are in general quite different from those made by Consolidated Steel. They only overlap at a very small part of the field insofar as the physical dimensions of the pipe are concerned.
"Q. You have spoken of pipe made by Consolidated for water conveyance. Are those what have been referred to as penstocks?
"A. No, sir. Well, yes, to a certain extent penstocks, and many other types of low-pressure water pipe. It is true that penstocks are included in that as far as Consolidated is concerned. National Tube Company do not make any penstock pipe. They have not made any for ten years.
"Q. And none of what you term light-pressure pipe?
"A. We don't compete with that. We make high-pressure pipe only."
"Likewise irrelevant is the importance of the interstate commerce affected in relation to the entire amount of that type of commerce in the United States. The Sherman Act is concerned with more than the large, nation-wide obstacles in the channels of interstate trade. It is designed to sweep away all appreciable obstructions so that the statutory policy of free trade might be effectively achieved. As this Court stated in Indiana Farmer's Guide Co. v. Prairie Farmer Co., 293 U.S. 268, 279, `The provisions of §§ 1 and 2 have both a geographical and distributive significance and apply to any part of the United States as distinguished from the whole and to any part of the classes of things forming a part of interstate commerce.' It follows that the complaint in this cause is not defective for failure to allege that CCM has a monopoly with reference to the total number of taxicabs manufactured and sold in the United States. Its relative position in the field of cab production has no necessary relation to the ability of the appellees to conspire to monopolize or restrain, in violation of the Act, an appreciable segment of interstate cab sales. An allegation that such a segment has been or may be monopolized or restrained is sufficient."
"Nor can it be doubted that combinations and conspiracies of the type alleged in this case fall within the ban of the Sherman Act. By excluding all cab manufacturers other than CCM from that part of the market represented by the cab operating companies under their control, the appellees effectively limit the outlets through which cabs may be sold in interstate commerce. Limitations of that nature have been condemned time and again as violative of the Act. . . . In addition, by preventing the cab operating companies under their control from purchasing cabs from manufacturers other than CCM, the appellees deny those companies the opportunity to purchase cabs in a free, competitive market. The Sherman Act has never been thought to sanction such a conspiracy to restrain the free purchase of goods in interstate commerce."
"Exploration of these phases of the cases would not be necessary if, as the Department of Justice argues, vertical integration of producing, distributing and exhibiting motion pictures is illegal per se. But the majority of the Court does not take that view. In the opinion of the majority the legality of vertical integration under the Sherman Act turns on (1) the purpose or intent with which it was conceived, or (2) the power it creates and the attendant purpose or intent. First, it runs afoul of the Sherman Act if it was a calculated scheme to gain control over an appreciable segment of the market and to restrain or suppress competition, rather than an expansion to meet legitimate business needs."
The legality of contractual arrangements for exclusive dealing was sustained in United States v. Bausch & Lomb Co., 321 U.S. 707, 728-29. Compare Federal Trade Comm'n v. Curtis Publishing Co., 260 U.S. 568.
"Anyone who owns and operates the single theatre in a town, or who acquires the exclusive right to exhibit a film, has a monopoly in the popular sense. But he usually does not violate § 2 of the Sherman Act unless he has acquired or maintained his strategic position, or sought to expand his monopoly, or expanded it by means of those restraints of trade which are cognizable under § 1. For those things which are condemned by § 2 are in large measure merely the end products of conduct which violate § 1. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 61. But that is not always true. Section 1 covers contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in restraint of trade. Section 2 is not restricted to conspiracies or combinations to monopolize but also makes it a crime for any person to monopolize or to attempt to monopolize any part of interstate or foreign trade or commerce. So it is that monopoly power, whether lawfully or unlawfully acquired, may itself constitute an evil and stand condemned under § 2 even though it remains unexercised. For § 2 of the Act is aimed, inter alia, at the acquisition or retention of effective market control. See United States v. Aluminum Co. of America. 148 F.2d 416, 428, 429. Hence the existence of power `to exclude competition when it is desired to do so' is itself a violation of § 2, provided it is coupled with the purpose or intent to exercise that power. American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U.S. 781, 809, 811, 814."
"The only argument that has been seriously advanced in favor of private monopoly is that competition involves waste, while the monopoly prevents waste and leads to efficiency. This argument is essentially unsound. The wastes of competition are negligible. The economies of monopoly are superficial and delusive. The efficiency of monopoly is at the best temporary.
"Undoubtedly competition involves waste. What human activity does not? The wastes of democracy are among the greatest obvious wastes, but we have compensations in democracy which far outweigh Page 535 that waste and make it more efficient than absolutism. So it is with competition. The waste is relatively insignificant. There are wastes of competition which do not develop, but kill. These the law can and should eliminate, by regulating competition.
"It is true that the unit in business may be too small to be efficient. It is also true that the unit may be too large to be efficient, and this is no uncommon incident of monopoly." P. 105.
". . . no monopoly in private industry in America has yet been attained by efficiency alone. No business has been so superior to its competitors in the processes of manufacture or of distribution as to enable it to control the market solely by reason of its superiority." P. 114-15.
"The Steel Trust, while apparently free from the coarser forms of suppressing competition, acquired control of the market not through greater efficiency, but by buying up existing plants and particularly ore supplies at fabulous prices, and by controlling strategic transportation systems." P. 115.
"But the efficiency of monopolies, even if established, would not justify their existence unless the community should reap benefit from the efficiency; experience teaches us that whenever trusts have developed efficiency, their fruits have been absorbed almost wholly by the trusts themselves. From such efficiency as they have developed the community has gained substantially nothing. For instance: . . . The Steel Trust, a corporation of reputed efficiency. The high prices maintained by it in the industry are matters of common knowledge. In less than ten years it accumulated for its shareholders or paid out as dividends on stock representing merely water, over $650,000,000." Pp. 120-121.
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