Opinion ID: 1503668
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alcoa's Unlawful Practices.

Text: As we have said, the plaintiff also sought to convict Alcoa of practices in which it engaged, not because they were necessary to the development of its business, but only in order to suppress competitors. Since we are holding that Alcoa monopolized the ingot market in 1940, regardless of such practices, these issues might be moot, if it inevitably followed from our holding that Alcoa must be dissolved. It could be argued that the new companies which would then emerge, should not be charged in retrospect with their predecessor's illegal conduct; but should be entitled to start without the handicap of injunctions, based upon its past. Possibly that would be true, except that conditions have so changed since the case was closed, that, as will appear, it by no means follows, because Alcoa had a monopoly in 1940, that it will have one when final judgment is entered after the war. That judgment may leave it intact as a competing unit among other competing units, and the plaintiff might argue, and undoubtedly will, that, if it was in the past guilty of practices, aimed at monopolizing the ingot market, it would be proper and necessary to enjoin their resumption, even though it no longer will have a monopoly. For this reason it appears to us that the issues are not altogether moot. In spite of the prolixity of the evidence, the challenged practices can be divided into three classes: (a) the preemption of bauxite deposits and water power; (b) the suppression of several efforts by competitors to invade either the ingot market, or some of the markets for fabricated goods; (c) the domination of the markets for such goods, and particularly of the markets for sheet and cable.