Opinion ID: $opinion_id
Heading Depth: 1.0
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: $label

Text: This case requires us to decide, at the outset, a question we have not previously addressed: whether a private plaintiff seeking an injunction under § 16 of the Clayton Act must show a threat of antitrust injury. To decide the question, we must look first to the source of the antitrust injury requirement, which lies in a related provision of the Clayton Act, § 4, 15 U.S. C. § 15.

Like § 16, § 4 provides a vehicle for private enforcement of the antitrust laws. Under § 4, "any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefore in any district court of the United States . . . , and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." 15 U.S. C. § 15. In Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra, we held that plaintiffs seeking treble damages under § 4 must show more than simply an "injury causally linked" to a particular merger; instead, "plaintiffs must prove antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes the defendants' acts unlawful." Id., at 489 (emphasis in original). The plaintiffs in Brunswick did not prove such injury. The plaintiffs were 3 of the 10 bowling centers owned by a relatively small bowling chain. The defendant, one of the two largest bowling chains in the country, acquired several bowling centers located in the plaintiffs' market that would have gone out of business but for the acquisition. The plaintiffs sought treble damages under § 4, alleging as injury "the loss of income that would have accrued had the acquired centers gone bankrupt" and had competition in their markets consequently been reduced. Id., at 487. We held that this injury, although causally related to a merger alleged to violate § 7, was not an antitrust injury, since "[i]t is inimical to [the antitrust] laws to award damages" for losses stemming from continued competition. Id., at 488. This reasoning in Brunswick was consistent with the principle that "the antitrust laws . . . were enacted for `the protection of competition, not competitors.' " Ibid., quoting Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 320 (1962) (emphasis in original).

Subsequent decisions confirmed the importance of showing antitrust injury under § 4. In Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, 457 U.S. 465 (1982), we found that a health-plan subscriber suffered antitrust injury as a result of the plan's "purposefully anticompetitive scheme" to reduce competition for psychotherapeutic services by reimbursing subscribers for services provided by psychiatrists but not for services provided by psychologists. Id., at 483. We noted that antitrust injury, "as analyzed in Brunswick, is one factor to be considered in determining the redressability of a particular form of injury under § 4," id., at 483, n. 19, and found it "plain that McCready's injury was of a type that Congress sought to redress in providing a private remedy for violations of the antitrust laws." Id., at 483. Similarly, in Associated General Contractors of California, Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519 (1983), we applied "the Brunswick test," and found that the petitioner had failed to allege antitrust injury. Id., at 539-540.[5]

Section 16 of the Clayton Act provides in part that "[a]ny person, firm, corporation, or association shall be entitled to sue for and have injunctive relief . . . against threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws . . . ." 15 U.S. C. § 26. It is plain that § 16 and § 4 do differ in various ways. For example, § 4 requires a plaintiff to show actual injury, but § 16 requires a showing only of "threatened" loss or damage; similarly, § 4 requires a showing of injury to "business or property," cf. Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U.S. 251 (1972), while § 16 contains no such limitation.[6] Although these differences do affect the nature of the injury cognizable under each section, the lower courts, including the courts below, have found that under both § 16 and § 4 the plaintiff must still allege an injury of the type the antitrust laws were designed to prevent.[7] We agree.

The wording concerning the relationship of the injury to the violation of the antitrust laws in each section is comparable. Section 4 requires proof of injury "by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws"; § 16 requires proof of "threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws." It would be anomalous, we think, to read the Clayton Act to authorize a private plaintiff to secure an injunction against a threatened injury for which he would not be entitled to compensation if the injury actually occurred.

There is no indication that Congress intended such a result. Indeed, the legislative history of § 16 is consistent with the view that § 16 affords private plaintiffs injunctive relief only for those injuries cognizable under § 4. According to the House Report:

"Under section 7 of the act of July 2, 1890 [revised and incorporated into Clayton Act as § 4], a person injured in his business and property by corporations or combinations acting in violation of the Sherman antitrust law, may recover loss and damage for such wrongful act. There is, however, no provision in the existing law authorizing a person, firm, corporation, or association to enjoin threatened loss or damage to his business or property by the commission of such unlawful acts, and the purpose of this section is to remedy such defect in the law." H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, p. 21 (1914) (emphasis added).[8]
Sections 4 and 16 are thus best understood as providing complementary remedies for a single set of injuries. Accordingly, we conclude that in order to seek injunctive relief under § 16, a private plaintiff must allege threatened loss or damage "of the type the antitrust laws were designed to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants' acts unlawful." Brunswick, 429 U. S., at 489. We therefore turn to the question whether the proposed merger in this case threatened respondent with antitrust injury.