Monopolization Flashcards
U.S. v. ALCOA
Defining market share is the main fight in the case and the measure by which you determine whether or not there is a monopoly.
Is it not the means by which a monopoly is achieved, but a persistent determination to maintain control which indicates a monopoly.
Price Squeeze - Alcoa was selling aluminum at high prices and then charging secondary manufactured items at low prices.
Monopoly and price-fixing contracts are, in effect, the same.
No specific intent required by the monopolist, because no monopolist monopolizes unconscious of what he’s doing.
American Tobacco
Affirms ALCOA: Three big tobacco companies lowering prices in conjunction to drive out smaller competitors is per se illegal because the material consideration in determining whether a monopoly exists is not that prices are raised and that competition actually is excluded, but that power exists to raise prices or to exclude competition at will.
U.S. v. United Shoe
1) Defendant must have, and exercise such power that it controls the market
2) Strength excludes some potential, and limits some actual, competition, and
3) Not attributable solely to defendant’s ability, economies of scale, research, natural advantages, and adaption to inevitable economic laws - leasing system.
Social advantage does not matter - up to Congress to decide.
U.S. v. E.I. Du Pont
Cross-elasticity of demand - how close are substitutes?
If there is a wide variety of substitutes, there is likely no
