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Page Number: 48

24 

OHIO v. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

yet  considered  whether  the  relationship  between  the  two 
services might make a difference at steps 2 and 3.  That is 
to  say,  American  Express  might  wish  to  argue  that  the 
nondiscrimination  provisions,  while  anticompetitive  in
respect to merchant-related services, nonetheless have an 
adequate offsetting procompetitive benefit in respect to its 
shopper-related services.  I believe that American Express
should have an opportunity to ask the Court of Appeals to
consider that matter. 

American Express might face an uphill battle.  A Sher­
man Act §1 defendant can rarely, if ever, show that a pro-
competitive  benefit  in  the  market  for  one  product  offsets 
an  anticompetitive  harm  in  the  market  for  another.    In 
United States v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U. S. 596, 611 
(1972), this Court wrote: 

“If a decision is to be made to sacrifice competition in
one portion of the economy for greater competition in
another  portion,  this  . . .  is  a  decision  that  must  be
made by Congress and not by private forces or by the 
courts.  Private  forces  are  too  keenly  aware  of  their 
own interests in making such decisions and courts are
ill-equipped and ill-situated for such decisionmaking.” 

American  Express,  pointing  to  vertical  price-fixing 
cases  like  our  decision  in  Leegin,  argues  that  comparing
competition-related pros and cons is more common than I 
have  just  suggested.  See  551  U. S.,  at  889–892.    But 
Leegin held only that vertical price fixing is subject to the 
“rule of reason” instead of being per se unlawful; the “rule 
of  reason”  still  applies  to  vertical  agreements  just  as  it
applies to horizontal agreements.  See id., at 898–899. 

Moreover,  the  procompetitive  justifications  for  vertical
price-fixing  agreements  are  not  apparently  applicable  to 
the  distinct  types  of  restraints  at  issue  in  this  case.    A 
vertically  imposed  price-fixing  agreement  typically  in­
volves a manufacturer controlling the terms of sale for its