Opinion ID: 107938
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Injunction.

Text: In setting aside the District Court's grant of injunctive relief against continued participation by HRI and Hazeltine in any patent pool or similar association restricting Zenith's export trade, [23] the Court of Appeals stated, without more: It follows from our conclusion with respect to the foreign patent pools that injunctive relief against `threatened loss or damage' directed at those pools, alleged by Zenith to be unlawful conspiracies, cannot be justified under 15 U. S. C. Sec. 26. Paragraph C of the injunction granted must be stricken. 388 F. 2d, at 39. The evident premise for striking Paragraph C was that Zenith's failure to prove the fact of injury barred injunctive relief as well as treble damages. This was unsound, for § 16 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 26, which was enacted by the Congress to make available equitable remedies previously denied private parties, invokes traditional principles of equity and authorizes injunctive relief upon the demonstration of threatened injury. [24] That remedy is characteristically available even though the plaintiff has not yet suffered actual injury, see Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Journeymen Stone Cutters' Assn., 274 U. S. 37, 54-55 (1927); he need only demonstrate a significant threat of injury from an impending violation of the antitrust laws or from a contemporary violation likely to continue or recur. See Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396 (1905); Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Journeymen Stone Cutters' Assn., supra, at 54; United States v. Oregon State Medical Society, 343 U. S. 326, 333 (1952); United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 633 (1953). Moreover, the purpose of giving private parties treble-damage and injunctive remedies was not merely to provide private relief, but was to serve as well the high purpose of enforcing the antitrust laws. E. g., United States v. Borden Co., 347 U. S. 514, 518 (1954). Section 16 should be construed and applied with this purpose in mind, and with the knowledge that the remedy it affords, like other equitable remedies, is flexible and capable of nice adjustment and reconciliation between the public interest and private needs as well as between competing private claims. Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 321, 329-330 (1944). Its availability should be conditioned by the necessities of the public interest which Congress has sought to protect. Id., at 330. Judged by the proper standard, the record before us warranted the injunction with respect to Canada. The findings of the District Court were that HRI and CRPL were conspiring to exclude Zenith and others from the Canadian market; there was nothing indicating that this clear violation of the antitrust laws had terminated or that the threat to Zenith inherent in the conduct would cease in the foreseeable future. Neither the relative quiescence of the pool during the litigation nor claims that objectionable conduct would cease with the judgment negated the threat to Zenith's foreign trade. [25] That threat was too clear for argument, and injunctive relief against HRI with respect to the Canadian market was wholly proper. We also reinstate the injunction entered by the District Court insofar as it more broadly barred HRI from conspiring with others to restrict or prevent Zenith from entering any other foreign market. In exercising its equitable jurisdiction, [a] federal court has broad power to restrain acts which are of the same type or class as unlawful acts which the court has found to have been committed or whose commission in the future, unless enjoined, may fairly be anticipated from the defendant's conduct in the past. NLRB v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U. S. 426, 435 (1941). See also United States v. National Lead Co., 332 U. S. 319, 328-335 and n. 4 (1947). Given the findings that HRI was conspiring with the Canadian pool, its purpose to exclude Zenith from Canada and its violation of the Sherman Act were clearly established. Its propensity for arrangements of this sort was also indicated by the findings revealing its participation in similar pools operating in England and Australia. [26] Zenith, a company interested in expanding its foreign commerce and having suffered at the hands of HRI and its coconspirators in the Canadian market, was entitled to injunctive relief against like conduct by HRI in other world markets. We see no reason that the federal courts, in exercising the traditional equitable powers extended to them by § 16, should not respond to the salutary principle that when one has been found to have committed acts in violation of a law he may be restrained from committing other related unlawful acts. NLRB v. Express Publishing Co., supra, at 436. Although a district court may not enjoin all future illegal conduct of the defendant, or even all future violations of the antitrust laws, however unrelated to the violation found by the court, e. g., New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. ICC, 200 U. S. 361, 401 (1906), [w]hen the purpose to restrain trade appears from a clear violation of law, it is not necessary that all of the untraveled roads to that end be left open and that only the worn one be closed. International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392, 400 (1947). This is particularly true in treble-damage cases, which are brought for private ends, but which also serve the public interest in that they effectively pry open to competition a market that has been closed by defendants' illegal restraints. Id., at 401.