Opinion ID: 700613
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defendants' Anticompetitive Intent

Text: 23 KMB also contends that it has met the adverse-effect requirement by producing evidence of defendants' anticompetitive intent. Intent is relevant to the reasonableness inquiry, but only to help courts interpret the effects of defendants' actions. Anheuser-Busch, 811 F.Supp. at 874. Like market power, anticompetitive intent is not by itself sufficient to meet the adverse-effect requirement. See Chicago Bd. of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231, 238, 38 S.Ct. 242, 243-44, 62 L.Ed. 683 (1918) (noting that intent is relevant in the antitrust context, but not because a good intention will save an otherwise objectionable regulation or the reverse  (emphasis added)); cf. Capital Imaging, 996 F.2d at 543 (citing id.). Without some evidence of an adverse impact on competition in either the interbrand or intrabrand market, the fact that customers induce a seller to refrain from dealing with another potential customer in order to limit competition does not satisfy a plaintiff's initial burden under Sec. 1. See Oreck, 579 F.2d at 133-34 (Plaintiff failed to show anticompetitive effect even though plaintiff's competitor convinced defendant to stop selling to plaintiff.). KMB's evidence of defendants' intent, even belief that what they were doing might be unlawful, is unavailing in the absence of evidence of anti-competitive effect.