Opinion ID: 109098
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Perceived Potential Entry.

Text: The Government's failure to establish that NBC has alternative methods of entry that offer a reasonable likelihood of producing procompetitive effects is determinative of the fourth step of its argument. Rational commercial bankers in Spokane, it must be assumed, are aware of the regulatory barriers that render NBC an unlikely or an insignificant potential entrant except by merger with WTB. In light of those barriers, it is improbable that NBC exerts any meaningful procompetitive influence over Spokane banks by standing in the wings. Moreover, the District Court found as a fact that the threat of entry by NBC into the Spokane market by any means other than the consummation of the merger, to the extent any such threat exists, does not have any significant effect on the competitive practices of commercial banks in that market nor any significant effect on the level of competition therein. 1973-1 Trade Cas. ถ 74,496, p. 94,246. In making this finding, it appears that the District Court appraised the economic facts about NBC and the Spokane market in order to determine whether in any realistic sense [NBC] could be said to be a potential competitor on the fringe of the market with likely influence on existing competition. Falstaff, 410 U. S., at 533-534 (footnote omitted). Our review of the record indicates that the court's finding was not in error. The Government's only hard evidence of any wings effect was a memorandum written in 1962 by an officer of NBC expressing the view that Spokane banks were likely to engage in price competition as NBC approached their market. Evidence of an expression of opinion by an officer of the acquiring bank, not an official of a bank operating in the target market, in a memorandum written a decade prior to the challenged merger does not establish a violation of ง 7.