Opinion ID: 545572
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Willful Acquisition or Maintenance of Power, Intent to Destroy Competition, Anticompetitive Conduct

Text: 66 The previously discussed evidence of the split agreement and alleged attempt to boycott The Movie from the market raises a question of fact as to whether UA willfully acquired or maintained monopoly power by engaging in predatory or anticompetitive conduct designed to destroy competition. Appellees, on the other hand, argue that the mere semblance of a split agreement is not enough to raise a question of material fact; they claim that appellant's failure to introduce any evidence that UA or any of the distributor defendants had a conscious commitment to a common scheme to achieve an unlawful objective, i.e., to boycott The Movie, justified granting summary judgment. In other words, appellees contend that in addition to proving that UA had agreed with Nickelodeon to refrain from bidding against one another, to maintain their action, plaintiff also was required to show that UA secured the cooperation of distributors in excluding plaintiff from the first run market. 67 Such is not the case. The showing of a possible split agreement is one piece of circumstantial evidence from which a jury may infer a willful acquisition or maintenance of monopoly power. Market share is another. The fact that UA acquired its prior competitor Kindair, thus eliminating its only serious competition in the market, is further evidence of anti-competitive conduct on the part of UA, albeit prior to the time of The Movie's entry into the market. Together, these pieces of evidence, particularly examined in the context of a highly anti-competitive environment, are sufficient to raise a material issue of fact as to whether UA willfully maintained monopoly power or engaged in anticompetitive conduct with the intent to destroy or discourage competition. While it may be true, as appellees contend, that the alleged discriminatory adjustments are common in the industry, and while it may also be true that appellant never presented evidence of monopolistic profits, the evidence discussed above suffices to raise a material issue of fact on this element of the section 2 claim. 68