Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1454_5h26.pdf
Page Number: 36.0

12 

OHIO v. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

shopper-related  services  could  act  as  a  check  on  the  card
firm’s sale price of merchant-related services.  If anything, 
a  lower  price  of  shopper-related  card  services  is  likely  to
cause more shoppers to use the card, and increased shop­
per  popularity  should  make  it  easier  for  a  card  firm  to 
raise prices to merchants, not harder, as would be the case 
if  the  services  were  substitutes.   Thus,  unless  there  is 
something unusual about this case—a possibility I discuss 
below,  see  infra,  at  13–20—there  is  no  justification  for 
treating  shopper-related  services  and  merchant-related 
services  as  if  they  were  part  of  a  single  market,  at  least
not at step 1 of the “rule of reason.” 

C 

Regardless, a discussion of market definition was legally 
unnecessary at step 1.  That is because the District Court 
found  strong  direct  evidence  of  anticompetitive  effects
flowing  from  the  challenged  restraint.  88  F. Supp. 3d,  at 
207–224.  As  I  said,  supra,  at  7,  this  evidence  included 
Discover’s efforts to break into the credit-card business by 
charging  lower  prices  for  merchant-related  services,  only
to  find  that  the  “nondiscrimination  provisions,”  by  pre­
venting  merchants  from  encouraging  shoppers  to  use 
Discover cards, meant that lower merchant prices did not 
result in any additional transactions using Discover credit 
cards.  88  F. Supp. 3d,  at  213–214.    The  direct  evidence 
also  included  the  fact  that  American  Express  raised  its
merchant prices 20 times in five years without losing any 
appreciable  market  share.    Id.,  at  195–198,  208–212.    It 
also  included  the  testimony  of  numerous  merchants  that
they  would  have  steered  shoppers  away  from  American
Express  cards  in  response  to  merchant  price  increases
(thereby checking the ability of American Express to raise 
prices)  had  it  not  been  for  the  nondiscrimination  provi­
sions.  See id., at 221–222.  It included the factual finding 
that American Express “did not even account for the pos­