Opinion ID: 1547000
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Market Quotations.

Text: There is no dispute as to the fact that the Chamber has, does and will continue to refuse its daily market quotations to the Equity, the Exchange, the stockholders and members of either of them. There can be no doubt as to the harmful effect upon these parties of such refusal. There can be no doubt that such refusal injuriously affects the competition of such parties with the members of the Chamber and others. The claim is that such quotations are property, are the exclusive property of the Chamber and that it has the right to refuse them to such as it sees fit. On the one hand, it is true that such quotations are property. Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co., 198 U. S. 236, 250, 25 S. Ct. 637, 49 L. Ed. 1031; Hunt v. N. Y. Cotton Exchange, 205 U. S. 322, 333, 27 S. Ct. 529, 51 L. Ed. 821. On the other hand, it is true that the business of the Chamber is affected with a public interest and is therefore subject to reasonable regulation in the public interest (Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262 U. S. 1, 40, 43 S. Ct. 470, 67 L. Ed. 839), and this has been expressly decided in connection with the publications of market quotations (Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262 U. S. 1, 41, 43 S. Ct. 470, 67 L. Ed. 839; Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co., 198 U. S. 236, 249, 25 S. Ct. 637, 49 L. Ed. 1031; N. Y. and Chicago Grain Exchange v. Chicago Board of Trade, 127 Ill. 153, 19 N. E. 855, 2 L. R. A. 411, 11 Am. St. Rep. 107). As to such regulation, the court, in the Olsen Case (page 41 [43 S. Ct. 479]), said: Congress may, therefore, reasonably limit the rules governing its conduct with a view to preventing abuses and securing freedom from undue discrimination in its operations. But whatever may be the power to regulate the use and, possibly, the distribution of this character of property, no such general proposition is here involved. Here the controversy is between competitors. It would be a strange situation, logically or legally, where one could be compelled to furnish its own property to a competitor to be used as a major weapon of its own destruction. Such a legal situation seems to be denied by International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U. S. 215, 239, 39 S. Ct. 68, 63 L. Ed. 211, 2 A. L. R. 293. While the Exchange is really not able to function as a terminal market, yet, it would do so if it could and it is a bitter competitor of the Chamber and intent upon the replacement and destruction of the Chamber. Also, the Equity is the principal member and the mainstay of the Exchange and to furnish it or other members of the Exchange with such quotations would inevitably result in their use by the Exchange and would have the same effect as furnishing them to the Exchange directly. The Exchange was formed by the Equity as its instrument for destroying the Chamber. That was the expressed purpose of its formation. Competition is by no means legally free from proper restraint, and it is beyond all reason to require any one to furnish the means of his own destruction to another who is bent upon accomplishing such destruction. We think the order of the Commission respecting the furnishing of market quotations is invalid because it is not, under the circumstances, conclusively shown by this record, an unfair method of competition for the Chamber to refuse to supply such quotations to these parties covered by the order.