Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/378/158/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-12-16 08:26:41
Document Index: 605483101

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7', '§ 1', '§ 29', '§ 7', '§ 1', '§ 7']

UNITED STATES V. PENN-OLIN CHEMICAL CO., 378 U. S. 158 - Volume 378 - 1964 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 378 > UNITED STATES V. PENN-OLIN CHEMICAL CO., 378 U. S. 158 (1964) > Full Text
Pennsalt Chemicals Corporation and Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation jointly formed Penn-Olin Chemical Company to produce and sell sodium chlorate in the southeastern United States. The Government seeks to dissolve this joint venture as violative of both § 7 of the Clayton Act [Footnote 1] and § 1 of the Sherman Act. [Footnote 2] This direct appeal, 32 Stat. 823, 15 U.S.C. § 29, from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware raises two questions. First, whether § 7 of the Clayton Act is applicable where two corporations form a third to engage in a new enterprise, and second, if this question is answered in the affirmative, whether there is a violation of § 1 or § 7 under the facts of this case. The trial court found that the joint venture, on this record,
The joint venture, like the "merger" and the "conglomeration," often creates anticompetitive dangers. It is the chosen competitive instrument of two or more corporations previously acting independently and usually competitively with one another. The result is "a triumvirate of associated corporations." [Footnote 4] If the parent companies are in competition, or might compete absent the joint venture, it may be assumed that neither will compete with the progeny in its line of commerce. Inevitably, the operations of the joint venture will be frozen to those lines of commerce which will not bring it into competition with the parents, and the latter, by the same token, will be foreclosed from the joint venture's market.
Agreements among competitors [Footnote 2/1] to divide markets are per se violations of the Sherman Act. [Footnote 2/2] The most detailed,
So what we have, in substance, is two major companies who, on the eve of competitive projects in the southeastern market, join forces. In principle, the case is no different from one where Pennsalt and Olin decide to divide the southeastern market, as was done in Addyston Pipe and in the other "division of markets" cases already summarized. Through the "joint venture," they do indeed divide it fifty-fifty. That division, through the device of the "joint venture," is as plain and precise as though made in more formal agreements. As we saw in the Timken case,
Ante, pp. 378 U. S. 175-176. This case -- now almost three years in litigation -- has already produced a trial extending over a 23-day period, the introduction of approximately 450 exhibits, and a 1,600-page record. We should not require the investment of additional time, money, and effort where, as here, a case turns on one crucial