Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1454_5h26.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

13 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

sibility  that  [large]  merchants  would  respond  to  its  price 
increases  by  attempting  to  shift  share  to  a  competitor’s
network”  because  the  nondiscrimination  provisions  pro­
hibited  steering. 
It  included  the  District 
Court’s  ultimate  finding  of  fact,  not  overturned  by  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  that  the  challenged  provisions  “were
integral  to”  American  Express’  “[price]  increases  and 
thereby caused merchants to pay higher prices.”  Ibid. 

Id.,  at  215. 

As I explained above, this Court has stated that “[s]ince 
the  purpose  of  the  inquiries  into  market  definition  and 
market  power  is  to  determine  whether  an  arrangement
has  the  potential  for  genuine  adverse  effects  on  competi­
tion, proof of actual detrimental effects . . . can obviate the
need for” those inquiries.  Indiana Federation of Dentists, 
476 U. S., at 460–461 (internal quotation marks omitted). 
That statement is fully applicable here.  Doubts about the 
District  Court’s  market-definition  analysis  are  beside  the 
point  in  the  face  of  the  District  Court’s  findings  of  actual 
anticompetitive harm.

The  majority  disagrees  that  market  definition  is  irrele­
vant.  See ante, at 11–12, and n. 7.  The majority explains
that  market  definition  is  necessary  because  the  nondis­
crimination  provisions  are  “vertical  restraints”  and 
“[v]ertical  restraints  often  pose  no  risk  to  competition 
unless the entity imposing them has market power, which 
cannot be evaluated unless the Court first determines the 
relevant market.”  Ante, at 11, n. 7.  The majority thus, in
a  footnote,  seems  categorically  to  exempt  vertical  re­
straints  from  the  ordinary  “rule  of  reason”  analysis  that 
has applied to them since the Sherman Act’s enactment in 
1890.  The majority’s only support for this novel exemption 
is  Leegin  Creative  Leather  Products,  Inc.  v.  PSKS,  Inc., 
551  U. S.  877  (2007).  But  Leegin  held  that  the  “rule  of 
reason”  applied  to  the  vertical  restraint  at  issue  in  that 
case.  See id., at 898–899.  It said nothing to suggest that
vertical  restraints  are  not  subject  to  the  usual  “rule  of