Case Name: UTAH PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION v. EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO. et al.
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1969-06-16
Citations: 395 U.S. 464
Docket Number: No. 776
Parties: UTAH PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION v. EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO. et al.
Judges: Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 395
Pages: 464–485

Head Matter:
UTAH PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION v. EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO. et al.
No. 776.
Argued April 29, 1969.—
Decided June 16, 1969.
Vernon B. Romney, Attorney General of Utah, argued the cause and filed a brief for appellant.
Leon M. Payne argued the cause and filed a brief for appellee El Paso Natural Gas Co. Richard B. Hooper argued the cause for appellees Cascade Natural Gas Corp. et al. With him on the brief were Robert L. Simpson, John W. Chapman, Robert M. Robson, Attorney General of Idaho, Larry D. Ripley, Robert Y. Thornton, Attorney General of Oregon, Richard W. Sabin, Slade Gorton, Attorney General of Washington, and Robert E. Simpson. John F. Sonnett argued the cause for appellee Colorado Interstate Corp. With him on the brief were Raymond L. Falls, Jr., and H. Richard Schumacher. Iver E. Skjeie, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for appellee the State of California. With him on the brief was Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General. Solicitor General Griswold argued the cause and filed a memorandum for the United States, at the invitation of the Court. William M. Bennett argued the cause and filed a brief pro se.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed by David K. Wat kiss and James D. McKinney, Jr., for the Colonial Group, and by John J. Flynn and I. Daniel Stewart, pro se.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is before us on appellant's motion to dismiss its appeal under Rule 60. Ordinarily parties may by consensus agree to dismissal of any appeal pending before this Court. However, there is an exception where the dismissal implicates a mandate we have entered in a cause. Our mandate is involved here. We therefore ordered oral argument at which all parties concerned were afforded an opportunity to be heard on the question whether there had been compliance with the mandate. 394 U. S. 970. At the oral argument a number of appellees supported appellant's motion. They included the United States, the State of California, El Paso Natural Gas Company, Cascade Natural Gas Corporation, Intermountain Gas Company, Northwest Natural Gas Company, the Wash ington Water Power Company, Washington Natural Gas Company, Idaho Public Utilities Commission, Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, Colorado Interstate Corporation, Southern California Gas Company, and Southern Counties Gas Company of California. The motion was opposed by John J. Flynn and I. Daniel Stewart, by brief amicus curiae, and by William M. Bennett, who appeared for the State of California when the case was last here, Cascade Natural Gas Corp. v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 386 U. S. 129, 131 (1967), and now presents himself, and argued orally, as "consumer spokesman."
This is a Clayton Act § 7 case, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 18, in which the acquisition of the stock and assets of Pacific Northwest Pipeline Corporation by El Paso Natural Gas Company raised the "ultimate issue" whether "the acquisition substantially lessened competition in the sale of natural gas in California." United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 376 U. S. 651, 652. We ordered divestiture "without delay." Id., at 662. That was in 1964. The United States later agreed to settle the case. As to that we said:
"We do not question the authority of the Attorney General to settle suits after, as well as before, they i'each here. The Department of Justice, however, by stipulation or otherwise has no authority to circumscribe the power of the courts to see that our mandate is carried out. No one, except this Court, has authority to alter or modify our mandate. United States v. du Pont & Co., 366 U. S. 316, 325. Our direction was that the District Court provide for 'divestiture without delay.' That mandate in the context of the opinion plainly meant that Pacific Northwest or a new company be at once restored to a position where it could compete with El Paso in the California market." 386 U. S., at 136.
We set aside that consent decree and remanded for additional findings and a new solution, saying:
"In the present case protection of California interests in a competitive system was at the heart of our mandate directing divestiture. For it was the absorption of Pacific Northwest by El Paso that stifled that competition and disadvantaged the California interests. It was indeed their interests, as part of the public interest in a competitive system, that our mandate was designed to protect." Id., at 135.
On remand the District Court decided it should choose from among the various applicants the one that is "best qualified to make New Company a serious competitor" in the California market. That court chose Colorado Interstate Corp., the only gas pipeline operator among the various applicants.
Under the plan approved by the District Court, El Paso receives 5,000,000 shares of New Company nonvoting preferred stock, convertible into common stock at the end of five years. What the conversion ratio will be is not known; but, it is said, there will be provisions to restrict El Paso control over the New Company. The New Company also assumes approximately $170,000,000 of El Paso's system-wide bond and debenture indebtedness, an amount designated the Northwest Division's pro-rata share of that indebtedness.
Utah's jurisdictional statement, which she now moves to dismiss, was filed here November 25, 1968. That jurisdictional statement presents the question whether the decree entered below satisfies our mandate. It is the filing of that jurisdictional statement that brings the question here. See United States v. du Pont & Co., 366 U. S. 316. In fact, in its jurisdictional statement, Utah urged that the decree does not meet the requirements of du Pont. We thus need not decide whether the papers filed by amicus curiae or Mr. Bennett properly presented the question of compliance. We find that the decree of the District Court does not comply with our mandate: it does not apportion the gas reserves between El Paso and New Company in a manner consistent with the purpose of the mandate, and it does not provide for complete divestiture. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings.
I.
When the case was last here we said, "The gas reserves granted the New Company must be no less in relation to present existing reserves than Pacific Northwest had when it was independent; and the new gas reserves developed since the merger must be equitably divided between El Paso and the New Company. We are told by the intervenors that El Paso gets the new reserves in the San Juan Basin — which due to their geographical propinquity to California are critical to competition in that market. But the merged company, which discovered them, represented the interests both of El Paso and of Pacific Northwest. We do not know what an equitable division would require. Hearings are necessary, followed by meticulous findings made in fight of the competitive requirements to which we have adverted." 386 U. S., at 136-137.
The District Court awarded 21.8% of the San Juan Basin reserves to the New Company saying that was "no less in relation to present existing reserves" than Northwest had when it was independent. The District Court also gave the New Company more than 50% of the net additions to the reserves developed since the merger. Concededly the total reserves of the New Company will not be sufficient to meet the old Northwest's existing requirements and those of a California project.
This attempt to paralyze competition in the California market started years ago; the Clayton Act suit was filed in 1957. The record up to the entry of the present decree shows, as the District Court found, that delay has strengthened El Paso's position. First, the delay has strengthened El Paso's hold on the California market, making it more and more difficult for a new out-of-state supplier to enter. Second, an additional out-of-state supplier has entered the California market during this 12-year period, taking what well might have been the place of the old Northwest Company had not its competition been stifled. Third, permits for new pipelines from Texas to California are now pending before the Federal Power Commission.
The purpose of our mandate was to restore competition in the California market. An allocation of gas reserves should be made which is "equitable" with that purpose in mind. The position of the New Company must be strengthened and the leverage of El Paso not increased. That is to say, an allocation of gas reserves— particularly those in the San Juan Basin — must be made to rectify, if possible, the manner in which El Paso has used the illegal merger to strengthen its position in the California market. The object of the allocation of gas reserves must be to place New Company in the same relative competitive position vis-á-vis El Paso in the California market as that which Pacific Northwest enjoyed immediately prior to the illegal merger.
A reallocation of gas reserves under this standard may permit an applicant other than Colorado Interstate Corporation to acquire New Company and make it a competitive force in California. Thus, the District Court is directed to effect this reallocation of gas reserves, and, in light of the reallocation, to reopen consideration of which applicant should acquire New Company. Such consideration should, of course, include whether an award to a particular applicant will have any anti-competitive effects either in the California market or in other markets.
II.
Our mandate directed complete divestiture. The District Court did not, however, direct complete divestiture. Neither appellant nor any party supporting the dismissal argues that the District Court did so. Rather they argue that the disposition made by the District Court was the best that might be made without complete divestiture. Clearly this does not comply with our mandate. United States v. du Pont & Co., 366 U. S. 316, was another § 7 case in which we ordered "complete divestiture." Id., at 328. One plan proposed was a distribution of General Motors shares held by du Pont, most of them to be distributed pro rata over a 10-year period to du Pont stockholders; the rest were to be sold gradually over the same 10-year period. Id., at 319-320. Du Pont's alternate plan was to retain all attributes of ownership, passing through to its shareholders the voting rights proportional to their holdings of du Pont shares. We did not approve that plan but directed "complete divestiture." Id., at 334. We said: "The very words of § 7 suggest that an undoing of the acquisition is a natural remedy. Divestiture or dissolution has traditionally been the remedy for Sherman Act violations whose heart is intercorporate combination and control." 366 U. S., at 329. We said that divestiture only of voting rights was not an adequate remedy. What was necessary was dissolution "of the intercorporate community of interest which we found to violate the law." Id., at 331.
The reason advanced for allowing El Paso to take a stock interest in the New Company rather than cash is to reduce its income tax burden. We have emphasized that the pinch on private interests is not relevant to fashioning an antitrust decree, as the public interest is our sole concern. United States v. du Pont & Co., supra, at 326.
The same reasoning is applicable to the present case. Retention by El Paso and its stockholders of the preferred stock is perpetuation to a degree of the illegal intercorporate community. Assumption of $170,000,000 of El Paso's indebtedness helps keep the two companies in league. The severance of all managerial and all financial connections between El Paso and the New Company must be complete for the decree to satisfy our mandate. Only a cash sale will satisfy the rudiments of complete divestiture.
We vacate the judgment of the District Court and remand the cause for proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Rule 60 (1) provides:
"Whenever the parties thereto shall, by their attorneys of record, file with the clerk an agreement in writing that an appeal, petition for or writ of certiorari, or motion for leave to file or petition for [an] extraordinary writ be dismissed, specifying the terms as respects costs, and shall pay to the clerk any fees that may be due him, the clerk shall, without further reference to the court, enter an order of dismissal."
It was said by counsel for eight appellees at oral argument: "[W]e do not question this Court's authority to re-examine its mandate and compliance with it. We do urge, however, that your review be confined to the question whether the mandate has been carried out upon the record before this court."