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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 1', '§ 408', '§ 1324', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 415', '§ 408', '§ 1378', '§ 408', '§ 1378', '§ 414', '§ 408', '§ 411', '§ 408', '§ 7']

www.chanrobles.com UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 409 > HUGHES TOOL CO. V. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., 409 U. S. 363 (1973)
Subscribe to Cases that cite 409 U. S. 363 U.S. Supreme CourtHughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 409 U.S. 363 (1973)Hughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.No. 71-827Argued October 10, 1972Decided January 10, 1973*409 U.S. 363CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Trans World Airlines (TWA) brought this antitrust action against the Hughes Tool Co. (Toolco) and others for treble damages as a result of the manner in which Toolco had exercised its controlling interest in TWA, with particular reference to Toolco's asserted acts to control and dictate the acquisition and financing of aircraft by TWA. As an organization engaged in phases of aeronautics, Toolco could not acquire control of an air carrier such as TWA without consent of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). In 1944, the CAB approved de facto control of TWA by Toolco as comporting with the provisions of § 408 of the Federal Aviation Act. That provision permits acquisitions of control that the CAB finds are not inconsistent with the public interest and that will not result in monopoly. Section 414 immunizes from antitrust liability any conduct approved by a CAB order issued under § 408. The approval narrowly limited inter-company sales transactions without specific CAB approval, and required annual reporting. A few years later, Toolco and TWA made an agreement permitting Toolco to obtain full legal control of TWA. The CAB, after full hearings into the Toolco-TWA relationship, found that Toolco's financial and other support was of great importance to TWA, and concluded that "the continued interest of Toolco in TWA appears essential to the best interests of the carrier and the public." The CAB's approval was made subject to the conditions of the 1944 order. As a result, from 1944 to 1960, every acquisition and lease of aircraft by TWA from Toolco and each financing by TWA from Toolco received CAB approval pursuant to § 408. In 1960, Toolco's stock in TWA was placed in a voting trust in connection with a program for financing TWA's acquisition of jet equipment. Shortly thereafter, TWA brought this suit. As a defense, Toolco relied on Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296. The District Court entered a default judgment against chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 364
The complaint in this litigation alleged antitrust violations and damages suffered by Trans World Airlines (TWA) while under control of Hughes Tool Co. (Toolco). chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 365
A default judgment was entered for over $145 million with interest at the rate of 7 1/2%. The District Court's opinions confirming the damages award are reported at 308 F.Supp. 679, 312 F.Supp. 478. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 449 F.2d 51. The cases are here on a petition for certiorari [Footnote 1] and on a cross-petition. 405 U.S. 915. chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 366
Section 408 of the Act makes illegal certain mergers, consolidations, and other transactions without the approval of the Civil Aeronautics Board. [Footnote 3] Specifically, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 367
§ 408(a)(5) requires the approval of the Board when "any person engaged in any other phase of aeronautics" seeks to acquire control of any air carrier in any manner whatsoever. Section 408(b) authorizes and directs the Board to approve such transactions, including acquisitions chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 368
Section 408(e) empowers the Board, upon complaint or its own initiative, to investigate and determine whether any person is violating any provision of subsection (a) chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 369
It was against this statutory backdrop that the Civil Aeronautics Board issued a series of decisions and orders with respect to the control of TWA by Toolco, the major decisions being issued in 1944, 1948, 1950, and 1960. The first decision, 6 C.A.B. 153 (1944), authorized control of approximately 45.6% of the outstanding stock of TWA. From the Board's opinion issued at that time, it appears that Howard Hughes first became interested in TWA at the invitation of his friend, Jack Frye, the president of TWA. Hughes began acquiring TWA stock through Toolco, which he solely owned. By 1942, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 370
Toolco had acquired 42.1% of TWA's outstanding stock, and, for all practical purposes, was in position to control the day-to-day affairs of the carrier. Meanwhile, Hughes and Frye had jointly designed a four-engine transport, later known as the Constellation, which Lockheed agreed to manufacture under contract with Toolco. The contract was assigned by Toolco to TWA in 1942, Toolco reserving the right to purchase a sizable number of such aircraft through TWA. It was this arrangement by which Toolco might actually acquire for resale a number of commercial aircraft that, together with it experimental work in aviation and its manufacture of aircraft parts for the military, characterized Toolco as an organization engaged in any phase of aeronautics, and therefore forbidden to acquire control of an air carrier such as TWA without the consent of the Board. Toolco's control of TWA, by virtue of its stock ownership, which had by 1944 increased to 45.6%, was approved by the Board as being in the public interest and consistent with the provisions of § 408, including the prohibition against monopoly. In order to insure that Toolco would not abuse its power over TWA, "to its own profit and to the detriment of the public interest," 6 C.A.B. at 156, the approval was to continue only so long as inter-company purchases did not exceed $200 per item and did not amount to more than $10,000 in any one calendar year. Annual reports were required in this respect. [Footnote 6] 6 C.A.B. at 158. chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 371
After reviewing the aeronautical activities of Toolco, it was concluded that the aircraft division of the company chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 372
With its jurisdiction established, the Board proceeded with hearings and inquiry into whether the additional control was consistent with the public interest. This matter was also contested. Toolco thought that only a narrowly focused inquiry was appropriate, but the Board's public counsel not only insisted that the hearings be far-ranging but urged, as a possible solution, that the additional control be disapproved and that the original 1944 proceedings, Docket No. 1182, be reopened to determine whether all control of TWA by Toolco should be terminated. The Board [Footnote 7] opted for an investigation chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 373
Accordingly, the Toolco-Hughes-TWA relationship from 1939 to the date of the decision was examined in detail, including the events occurring since the letter agreement of January, 1947. The major focus of the inquiry was the differences between TWA management and Toolco with respect to the acquisition of new flight equipment -- the quantity, the type, the timing, and the financing thereof. Unquestionably, TWA had been and was in need of additional financing to make possible the purchase of new equipment, particularly that needed to operate its expanded routes. TWA proposed and preferred equity financing in large measure, but Toolco most often insisted on financing new equipment through credit arrangements. Disagreement caused delay, and this, in combination with other factors, brought TWA to the verge of bankruptcy or reorganization in late 1946. It was at this juncture that the January, 1947, letter agreement eventuated. Financial failure was averted; but urgent needs for new equipment continued, and substantial additions were made in the years from 1947 to 1950, most of it with the aid of Toolco and some of it chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 374
by purchase from Toolco itself. [Footnote 8] By the time the hearings concluded and the case was under submission, TWA's financial condition had considerably improved, measurably aided by better operating results, better expense control, and a stock offering to stockholders with the unsubscribed amount being underwritten by investment bankers. 12 C.A.B. at 208-209.
Ibid. [Footnote 9] Most important, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 375
The Board's approval in 1950 of the complete control of TWA by Toolco was made "subject to the terms and conditions" imposed by the 1944 order with respect to inter-company purchases and annual reporting. See supra at 409 U. S. 370. As a result, from 1944 through 1960, every acquisition or lease of aircraft by TWA from Toolco and each financing of TWA by Toolco required Board approval. Applications by Toolco were made to the Board in each instance, with the terms and conditions of the transactions being described. [Footnote 10] Each was approved by chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 376
the Board and each was regarded as a modification or interpretation of its antecedent control orders under § 408. Each of these transactional orders recited a finding of the Board that the transaction was "just and reasonable and in the public interest." Then, in December, 1960, the Board issued an order approving a major proposal by TWA for the acquisition of jet equipment, which, among other things, involved fundamental changes in relationship between TWA and Toolco in that the stock of the former, at the insistence of the financial institutions involved in the program, was to be placed in a voting trust, and the company's Board of Directors reconstituted. 32 C.A.B. 1363. The dominant position of Toolco thus ended for the period of the trusteeship. In the course of its opinion accompanying the order, the Board stated that, although it had not been officially informed of the reasons for the banks' insistence on the voting trust, it was not "unaware of TWA's problems." Id. at 1364. The Board knew, because it was a matter of public record, that TWA had been delayed in financing its jet fleet and the Board's opinion was that TWA had probably suffered because more attractive financing terms were no longer available and because the chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 377
It was six months later that TWA, now no longer under control of Toolco, filed suit against the latter alleging violations of the antitrust laws to the injury of TWA's business. As analyzed by the Court of Appeals in its opinions filed in this case, the complaint rested principally on Toolco's conduct as controlling stockholder during the years 1955-1960. The assertions were chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 378
As respects its defense that CAB control and surveillance gave it immunity from the antitrust suit, Toolco relies on Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296. The Court of Appeals distinguished that case, saying that, there, the unlawful division of territories and allocation of routes were directly "within the ambit of powers explicitly granted the Board by the Congress," 332 F.2d 608. The Court of Appeals said that the present case was different because, in its view, the continuing supervision of the Board over the Toolco-TWA relationship was general, and not related to specific conduct that gave rise to violations of the antitrust laws.
The transactions on the basis of which damages were awarded were based primarily on profits lost as a result of five transactions relating to orders placed by Toolco for a fleet of 63 jet aircraft destined for use by TWA. 449 F.2d 65-66:
(3) The diversion of six Boeing jets out of 33 ordered to Pan American Airways; chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 379
In Pan American World Airways v. United States, supra, the United States brought a civil antitrust action under §§ 1, 2, and 3 of the Sherman Act challenging the joint control of Panagra, an air carrier, by Pan American Airways and W. R. Grace & Co. The allegations were that Pan American, Grace, and Panagra had divided territories, that Pan American and Grace had conspired to monopolize air transportation on the west coast of South America, and that Pan American had used chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 380
As previously indicated, the Court of Appeals did not consider Pan American to be relevant or controlling because, different from the situation there, the conduct challenged in TWA's complaint against Toolco was "unrelated to any specific function of the CAB," and hence was not within the exclusive competence of that body. 332 F.2d 608. This view is difficult to square with the statute and the several opinions and chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 381
12 C.A.B. at 196. Hence, of major interest to the Board were the decisions of Toolco with respect to the type, quantity, timing, and financing of new equipment acquisitions by TWA. It examined and dealt with in great detail the assertions that Toolco had improperly delayed the arrival of new equipment, had insisted on debt, rather than equity, financing, and itself had sold or leased aircraft to TWA. All of these matters, the Board concluded, were central to proper determination of the issue of the additional control chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 382
Nor is it tenable to argue that, however relevant Toolco's new equipment decisions might have been to the public interest standard mandated for Board approval of the additional control obtained in 1947, the Board's authority nevertheless terminated with that approval and that the Board, having issued its approval, was powerless to control or oversee its exercise in the years to come. Section 408 permits only those acquisitions of control that are not inconsistent with the public interest, and that will not result in a monopoly. It also authorizes the Board to approve acquisitions subject to such conditions as it may deem desirable. Section 408(e) empowers the Board to investigate and remedy violations of § 408(a). If a carrier has acquired control "in any manner whatsoever" other than that approved by the Board, the Board is authorized either on complaint or its own initiative to investigate, and, if a violation is discovered, it is ordered to remedy that situation. Section 204(a), 49 U.S.C. § 1324(a), authorizes the Board to issue and amend such orders as it shall deem necessary chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 383
to carry out the provisions of and to exercise and perform its powers and duties under the statute. [Footnote 12]
Also instructive is the Board's response when asked in 1956 to modify its original order so as to permit TWA's purchase of up to 25 jet-powered aircraft from Toolco. chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 384
"The promotion of adequate, economical, and efficient service by air carriers at reasonable charges, Page 409 U. S. 385
Competition and monopoly [Footnote 13] -- two ingredients of the antitrust laws -- are thus standards governing the CAB's exercise of authority in granting, allowing, or expanding or contracting the control which Toolco had over TWA by reason of the various orders issued by the CAB under § 408. In this context, the authority of the Board to grant the power to "control" and to investigate and alter the manner in which that "control" is exercised leads us to conclude that this phase of CAB jurisdiction, like the one in the Pan American case, preempts the antitrust field. [Footnote 14] It should be noted in that connection that, in chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 386
It is too clear for argument that, in entering the 1950 order, the Board fully realized that Toolco had determined and would determine when and how much new equipment would be purchased, from whom it would be chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 387
There may be other exceptions. But where, as here, the CAB authorizes control of an air carrier to be acquired by another person or corporation, and where it specifically authorizes as in the public interest specific transactions between the parent and the subsidiary, the way in which that control is exercised in those precise situations is under the surveillance of the CAB, not in the hands of those who can invoke the sanctions of the antitrust laws. As noted, the parent company which controls an air carrier is subject to pervasive control by the CAB. The control which the CAB is authorized to grant or to deny under § 408 involves an appraisal of the impact of that control in terms of monopoly and competition; and the ongoing supervision entrusted to the CAB by § 415 is broad enough to put all transactions between chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 388
The short of it is that, in our view, §§ 408 and 414 of the Act, as construed in Pan American, require reversal of the Court of Appeals and dismissal of this action. What TWA charged in its complaint was no more than the kind of conduct the CAB, in 1950, had approved and chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 389
See 449 F.2d 71.
The history of this cause is so remarkable -- indeed, unique in the annals of modern federal jurisprudence, so far as I am aware -- that I must preface my dissent on the chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 390
This "notice of position" constituted a default, and accordingly judgment was entered against Toolco, on chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 391
May 3, 1963. The District Court then certified to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit the question of the sufficiency of the complaint on which the default judgment was based. The issue of damages was referred to the Special Master. On June 2, 1964, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in which it decided that the District Court had jurisdiction of the action and that the orders of the Civil Aeronautics Board affecting the relationship between the parties did not constitute a good defense to the antitrust claims of TWA. [Footnote 2/2] On November 16, 1964, this Court granted certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals. [Footnote 2/3] After full argument and briefing, but without opinion, the writ was dismissed as improvidently granted on March 8, 1965, [Footnote 2/4] and the case returned to the District Court for further proceedings to determine the amount of TWA's damages.
For nearly three years, proceedings were held before the Special Master [Footnote 2/5] to determine the appropriate amount of damages. On December 23, 1969, the District Court filed a new opinion confirming a report of the Special Master awarding damages amounting to $137,611,435.95. [Footnote 2/6] On April 14, 1970, the District Court filed a superseding order in which it added to the TWA award $7,500,000 as a reasonable attorney's fee (representing some 56,000 hours of work at a "mixed rate" of $128 per hour) and $336,705.12 in costs, for a total of $145,448,141.07, plus interest. The judgment was stayed pending a renewed appeal to the Court of Appeals, which, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 392
on September 1, 1971, affirmed the judgment of the District Court, with only slight modification. [Footnote 2/7]
This Court again granted certiorari on February 22, 1972, [Footnote 2/8] and today -- more than 11 years after it all began and more than seven years after the now-determinative issue was brushed aside by this Court -- the Court discovers that the actions alleged in TWA's complaint were immunized from the antitrust laws by the Civil Aeronautics Board's role in the Toolco-TWA relationship. This, of course, was the precise issue tendered to this Court for decision in 1964 in order to secure an early decision that might end the contest before enormous additional sums were expended in proving damages resulting from the actions alleged in TWA's complaint. [Footnote 2/9] chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 393
Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 373 U. S. 357 (1963). In particular, the Court today substantially enlarges the scope of Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296 (1963), a case which the Court says "requires" the result it reaches today -- notwithstanding that chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 394
Passing to the merits of the Court's holding, I find it necessary at the outset to supplement the Court's description of the statutory framework from which this litigation arises. Section 408 of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, 49 U.S.C. § 1378, [Footnote 2/11] requires the approval of the chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 395
CAB when any person [Footnote 2/12] seeks to acquire a controlling interest in any air carrier. The Board may approve such acquisition only if it finds that the acquisition will be consistent with the public interest. § 408(b), 49 U.S.C. § 1378(b). Specifically, the Board
The Act fails to elaborate on the scope of its command to the CAB not to approve any acquisition that would create a monopoly and thereby restrain competition. In other words, the Act fails to specify the relevant market or markets to which the Board must look in determining whether a particular acquisition or exercise of control is forbidden. Section 102 of the Act, [Footnote 2/13] chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 396
There can be no doubt the Board is responsible for promoting competition in some sense; our inquiry is whether the Board is charged with fostering competition both within the air transportation market and without, in other markets essentially unrelated to air transportation and alien to the purposes for which the Board was created. Resolution of this ambiguity is chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 397
critical to proper interpretation of § 414 of the Act, [Footnote 2/14] which confers antitrust immunity upon
"Competition among air carriers is being carried to an extreme, which tends to jeopardize the financial status of the air carriers and to jeopardize and render unsafe a transportation service appropriate to the needs of commerce and required in the public interest, Page 409 U. S. 398
"Under existing law, there is little economic regulation of air carriers. Routes are awarded not upon the basis of the ability of the particular air carrier to perform the service or the requirements of the public convenience and necessity, but upon the letting of air mail contracts to the lowest responsible bidders. This system has completely broken down in recent months, because the air carriers, in their desire to secure the right to carry the mail over a new route, have made absurdly low bids, indeed, have virtually evinced a willingness to pay for the privilege of carrying the mail over a particular route. A route once secured, however, under the existing system of air mail contracts does not protect the air carrier operating that route from possible cut-throat competition, for air carriers are not required to secure a certificate or other authorization from the Government before beginning operations, other than one based upon safety requirements. Nor is there any authority in the Federal Government under existing law to prevent Page 409 U. S. 399
Comment, Merger and Monopoly in Domestic Aviation, 62 Col.L.Rev. chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 400
"[S]uch a provision is very inadvisable, and very bad legislation, and ought never to be agreed to. Page 409 U. S. 401
Id. at 6729. Senator Copeland recited five different provisions of the bill "where the question of monopoly is dealt with in one way or another with the view to its control and prevention." When the debate turned from the discussion of general principles to application chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 402
of those principles to a particular fact situation, again the Senators spoke of consolidation and competition by air carriers. [Footnote 2/17]
Our holding in Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296, becomes important in this setting. There, the Government filed an antitrust complaint alleging, inter alia, anticompetitive interference by Pan American with the route acquisitions of Panagra, a joint venture of Pan American World Airways and W. R. Grace & Co. This court held that the complaint should be dismissed. The Court stood behind the presumption against implied antitrust immunity, 371 U.S. at 371 U. S. 304-305, n. 9; however, for two interdependent reasons, the Court held that the conduct alleged in Panagra's complaint was immunized from the antitrust laws. First, the conduct specified in the complaint fell within the chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 403
The present case is different from Pan American in a critical respect. Here, we may assume the Board possesses full authority under the Act to supervise § 408 transactions between a controlling person and an air carrier -- just as in Pan American, the allocation of routes and division of territories constituted the basic stuff of the Board's day-to-day business. Yet, unlike the acts specified by Panagra in Pan American, the acts charged in TWA's complaint are components of an antitrust conspiracy to restrain trade in the aircraft supply and manufacturing market. Section 411 does not command Board responsibility for preventing such a conspiracy, since § 411 is, in terms, restricted to unfair methods of competition "in air transportation or the sale thereof." Thus, to sustain its result in this case, the Court must chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 404
A. Improbable as it seems, there is much in the Court's opinion to suggest that its judgment rests upon the assumption that antitrust immunity is conferred here simply by virtue of a rather extensive grant of procedural authority for the Board to intervene in the "control person-air carrier" relationship. The Court recounts in detail the history of the Board's involvement in the Toolco-TWA relationship -- though the Court does not suggest, as it cannot, that the Board specifically considered the actions by Toolco alleged in TWA's complaint to violate the antitrust laws. [Footnote 2/18] The Court tells chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 405
us that, in 1950, the Board embarked upon a wide-ranging evaluation of the treatment afforded TWA by Toolco as the controlling person -- though the Court does not suggest, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 406
as again it cannot, that the 1950 proceeding of the Board even remotely considered Toolco's actions as components of an antitrust conspiracy directed toward the aircraft supply and manufacturing market. [Footnote 2/19] Finally, chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 407
The weakness inherent in the Court's recitation of "procedural underbrush" is that it leaps from the premise of the Board's acknowledged procedural power to intervene in § 408 "control" transactions to the conclusion that the Board's substantive statutory duty to consider the anticompetitive impact of such transactions is, or, for some reason of policy, ought to be, equally unlimited. Yet, inescapably, it is the Board's substantive mandate upon which antitrust immunity properly turns; as our prior decisions teach, the potential of colliding substantive judgments forces the carving out of antitrust immunity, not simply the overlapping of jurisdiction to intervene in a particular type of transaction. We have uniformly insisted upon a substantive mandate to the regulatory agency to consider fully and remedy the relevant anticompetitive conduct. See, in addition to Pan American, supra, United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 308 U. S. 206 (1939)(relevant provision of Capper-Volstead Act "does not cover the entire field of the Sherman Act"); 324 U. S. 458 (1945)("no warrant in the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Act for saying that the authority to fix joint through rates clothes with legality a conspiracy to discriminate against a State or a region, to use coercion in the fixing of rates, or to put in the hands of a combination of carriers a veto power over rates proposed by a single carrier"); Milk Producers Assn. v. United States, 362 U. S. 458, 362 U. S. 469 (1960) (§ 7 of Clayton Act immunized "transactions duly consummated pursuant to authority given by . . . the Secretary of Agriculture" under statutory authority, but this included only marketing agreements, and not agreements or restraints of wider scope typically covered by the antitrust laws); California v. Federal Power Comm'n, 369 U. S. 482, 369 U. S. 485 (1962)("Here . . . while antitrust considerations' are relevant to the issue of `public interest, convenience, and necessity' . . . there is no `pervasive regulatory scheme' . . . including the antitrust laws that has been entrusted to the Commission"); United States v. Philadelphia National Bank,@ 374 U. S. 321, 374 U. S. 351-352 (1963) (though Comptroller of Currency was required to consider effect on competition in passing on bank merger, not required to give the factor any particular weight, to hold a hearing, or to subject his determination to judicial review).
If the Board's basic function, the Act's legislative history, and the Board's view of its own mandate and competence were not enough to convince me that the Court's reading of the Act is erroneous, these factors are at least enough to raise substantial doubts. Such doubts, as our prior cases teach, are enough to secure the continuing availability of antitrust chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 410
or other judicial remedies as additional safeguards for protection of the public interest. "Repeals of the antitrust laws by implication from a regulatory statute are strongly disfavored." United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, supra, at 374 U. S. 350, United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. at 308 U. S. 198 ( "a cardinal principle of construction that repeals by implication are not favored"). See United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 310 U. S. 226-228 (1940); Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. at 324 U. S. 456-457; California v. Federal Power Comm'n, 369 U.S. at 369 U. S. 485, and 14 additional cases cited in MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN's opinion for the Court in United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, supra, at 374 U. S. 350 n. 28. The traditional aversion to implied repeal of the antitrust laws should have particular force in the context of the Federal Aviation Act, which explicitly states that
Nor does the Court's result seem justifiable for practical reasons of regulatory accommodation. Indeed, I find the Court's expansive reading of the Board's antitrust responsibilities inconsistent with our duty "to make the [regulatory scheme] work." Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U.S. at 373 U. S. 357. Section 408 of the Act has now been amended to require Board approval when any person, whether or not engaged in any aspect of aeronautics, acquires a controlling interest in an air carrier. In this age of conglomerate mergers, the time may soon arrive when another industrial corporation seeks to acquire control of an air carrier. It may well be that some similar future acquisition may be in the best interests of American air transportation. It may chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 411
Returning to the 1964 efforts of Toolco to have the Court resolve the issue of the Board's authority with respect to the antitrust issue, it is elementary, of course, that a denial of a petition for certiorari decides nothing. It is also true that dismissal of a petition as improvidently granted, after full oral argument and briefing, is not a judgment on the merits in any sense. But when parties to litigation reach that stage and the Court fails to respond with a decision on the merits, lawyers read that as a signal that the case should proceed. These parties chanroblesvirtualawlibraryPage 409 U. S. 412