Court Opinion

ID: 9450553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:51:48.234299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:22.536156
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I would agree that acquisitions which have not progressed beyond mere contemplation or consideration or a subjective judgment to proceed cannot be made the subject of a § 1312 civil investigative demand. In the light of that proposition, “proposed acquisitions” is a most equivocal term since it may well be directed to such situations. I therefore agree that the demand in suit is not subject to enforcement and was properly set aside.
However, I disagree with the majority opinion in permitting the demand only as to an accomplished acquisition — one beyond the reach of preventive injunction. This, in my judgment, reads the Antitrust Civil Process Act with unnecessary strictness.
In my view the business of acquiring encompasses more than the formal corporate resolutions finally accomplishing the acquisition. If companies are engaged in activities leading to that end which they can under the antitrust laws be halted from pursuing I would say that they are presently engaged in the process of acquiring and accordingly are presently in the process of violating the antitrust laws,