Opinion ID: 3009612
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Significant Win/Loss Reports

Text: Additionally, AMI argues that the district court improperly rejected one of its strongest pieces of evidence in support of its proposed market definition, the Significant Win/Loss Reports, also known as the SWLRs. These reports were prepared monthly for the top management of IBM and showed, for each competitive situation IBM faced, IBM's product offering, the offering of its competitors, and whether IBM won or lost the sale. See Allen-Myland, 693 F. Supp. at 272. According to the testimony of AMI's expert who reviewed the SWLRs (Professor Levin), in 97.6 percent of the reported cases in which the IBM offering was a large-scale mainframe, the competitor's offering was also a large-scale mainframe or an upgrade. AMI asserts that these reports proved that a distinct product market for largescale mainframe computers exists. The district court rejected this evidence for several reasons. First, it noted that IBM itself viewed the SWLRs as poor and unrepresentative indicators of actual market activity and eventually stopped using them. Id. at 273. In the alternative, it relied on the SWLRs themselves, which contained many examples in which non-IBM mainframes competed against IBM computers smaller than IBM mainframes. The district court believed that this additional competition undermined AMI's definition of the relevant market. Reports such as the SWLRs, which are used by IBM's management, can be powerful evidence in an antitrust case. In United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 110 F. Supp. 295, 304 (D. Mass. 1953), aff'd per curiam 347 U.S. 521, 74 S. Ct. 699 (1954), the court stated: When a business allows its own important judgments constantly to be affected by a statistical survey unflaggingly made, diligently kept current, and repeatedly consulted at least by subordinate advisers to the officers, then the statistical material may be used by a court to some degree as reliable evidence against the business. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the potentially probative value of this type of evidence, there is nothing that requires courts to credit such evidence. Here, as the district court pointed out, the record shows that IBM itself found the SWLRs were unreliable. As the trier of fact, the district court was entitled to credit that testimony and reject the SWLRs.17 Based on our conclusions about the relevant market and the various additions to it, however, it is possible that the district court may wish to reconsider the probative value, if any, of the SWLRs. On remand, of course, it is free to do so.