As indicated earlier, the U.S. steel corporation was formed in 1901 by a merger that combined the assets of 180 companies. U.S. steel’s market share began to decline almost immediately after its formation.
From 1907 to 1911, the president of U.S. steel, Judge Elbert Gary, sponsored the industry get – together known as the Gary dinners. The purpose of these dinners, as Gary frankly admitted, was to promote industry solidarity and prevent outbreaks of price competition.
These meetings were calculated to influence people to maintain their prices. There is no doubt of that but as I understand the vice of the law is in obligating to maintain prices . . . it was intended to influence people so far as we legitimately could maintain fair prices, each one for himself using his best judgment, after full knowledge of the business of all. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court’s reading of section 2 in this decision is that a firm violates section 2 if it has a monopoly position and if it acquired that position in a way that did not reflect competition on the merits. As we will see in chapter 10, court have considered mainly market share in deciding whether or not a firm has a monopoly within a meaning of the antitrust laws. To decide whether or not a firm’s conduct represents normal industrial development, courts have carried out a detailed review of the development of the industry. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court recognized that section II of the Sherman act does not prohibit monopoly as such:
Although the statute by the comprehensiveness of the enumerations embodied in both the first and second sections makes it certain that its purpose was to prevent undue restraints of every kind or nature, nevertheless by the omission of any direct prohibition against monopoly in the concrete it indicates a consciousness that the freedom of the individual right to contract well not unduly or improperly exercised was the most efficient means for the prevention of monopoly, since the operation of the centrifugal and centripetal forces resulting from the right to freely contract was the means by which monopoly would be inevitable prevented if no extraneous or sovereign power imposed it and no right to make unlawful contracts having a monopolistic tendency were permitted. Continue reading »