Court Opinion

ID: 9476604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:00:20.776759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:24.597475
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case is before us on appeal of the trial judge’s grant of summary judgment for defendants. The facts alleged are quite simple, and the majority has fairly presented them. But the majority appears to have misconceived the plaintiff's claims. It responds to Alberta Gas’s arguments with a variety of correct but, in my view, irrelevant legal principles, so that I have had difficulty ascertaining the grounds on which the district court has been affirmed. I therefore set out a brief summary of plaintiff’s case which will help explain why I believe the majority has reached the wrong result.
Alberta Gas is a Canadian company which makes methanol. Conoco was an American company with vast coal resources. In 1980, Conoco had firm plans to invest $1 billion in a plant that would transform coal into methanol. Gasoline prices were high in 1980, and Conoco intended to make methanol an automotive fuel as popular as gasoline. In order to stimulate the demand for the millions of gallons of methanol which its new plant was to produce, Conoco intended to create a large network of retail methanol distributors. The size of this network would induce consumers to begin to buy methanol-burning automobiles instead of cars using gasoline, so that when Conoco’s plant was ready to produce methanol, a market for the product would be in place. Alberta Gas contends that to operate this network before its own product could be sold through it, Conoco would have bought methanol from a number of other suppliers, including Alberta Gas. In the long run, the argument goes, Conoco’s methanol advertising blitz and its efforts to induce people to substitute methanol for gasoline would have dramatically expanded the demand for the product, and its market price would have risen. Alberta Gas would benefit from the rise in price and demand.
Alas, along came DuPont, which manufactured approximately 25-30% of the methanol used in the United States. DuPont used half of this methanol itself and sold the other half in the “merchant” (i.e. spot) market. DuPont acquired Conoco. DuPont then terminated Conoco’s plans to invest in the methanol market. Alberta Gas claims that DuPont did so to protect its own monopoly position in that market.

I. The Horizontal Claim

This is not the most believable story about the conduct of rational actors in the marketplace, because it is far from clear that it would make economic sense for DuPont to have behaved as Alberta Gas alleges it did.1 I would therefore have sympa*1248thized with the district court if it had found that the record justified the grant of summary judgment on the ground that Alberta Gas had not put forth enough evidence to make it likely that this arguably improbable story is true. I would be the last one to claim that summary judgment cannot be granted in an antitrust case on that basis. See Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., 513 F.Supp. 1100 (E.D.PA 1981), reversed, 723 F.2d 238 (3d Cir.1983), reversed, 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).
But the district court did not grant summary judgment on this ground, and DuPont does not advance the Matsushita approach as a ground for affirmance.2 The district court in this case held that plaintiffs had no standing to pursue their claims because it believed that plaintiffs had not alleged that they incurred “antitrust injury” as that term is defined in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat Corp., 429 U.S. 477, 97 S.Ct. 690, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977). That theory — not the belief that the plaintiffs have failed to support an implausible theory, and so should not reach a jury — is also the basis on which this Court now affirms the grant of summary judgment. That is an entirely different matter.
I believe that the majority’s result rests on a misconstruction of Brunswick and the more recent case of Cargill Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, - U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 484, 93 L.Ed.2d 427 (1986). In order to explain my view, I begin by pointing out that there is a set of facts under which it would make economic sense for DuPont to behave as Alberta Gas alleges it did. This explanation helps to clarify the fact that DuPont’s alleged actions were socially detrimental — i.e. anticompetitive — so that Alberta Gas has standing under Brunswick to challenge that activity. That set of facts is essentially as follows.
Assume that DuPont, as a participant in the oligopolistic market for methanol, is earning monopoly rent of $1 per unit on each of the 100 units of methanol it sells: total monopoly rent then equals $100. Assume further that if Conoco were to succeed in its plans to increase the demand for methanol, the number of units DuPont could sell would be 1000. Assume, however, that the market would then be much more competitive (more suppliers would enter the market, and there would be more competition, so that the difference beteen price and marignal revenue would fall even though price might rise). Then DuPont might earn only a penny in monopoly rent per unit, instead of $1. Total monopoly rent would now be $10 instead of $100 ($.01 X 1000 = $10.00 instead of $1 x 100 = $100). Alberta Gas alleges that DuPont killed Conoco’s plans to prevent this from happening.
Alberta Gas seeks damages for two kinds of injuries.3 First, Alberta Gas sues for the loss of the sales it would have made to Conoco before Conoco’s plant came on line, of the methanol Conoco would have used to set up its network of methanol distributors. Because the plan was terminated, plaintiff allegedly lost this business. In Count I Alberta Gas complains about this loss, which it calls the “vertical injury.” 4 But see discussion below, typescript at 14-15.
Second, Alberta Gas says that the increase in demand Conoco would have produced would have driven up both the consumption and the price of methanol over *1249the long term. Alberta Gas has access to a large supply of natural gas, so that its costs are both constant and low. Alberta Gas complains that this rise in consumption and price would in turn have meant an increase in Alberta Gas’s profits, and that DuPont’s termination of the project took those profits away. This claim the parties have denominated the “horizontal injury.”
With respect to the horizontal claim— that demand would have been stimulated and prices increased, thereby boosting Alberta Gas’s profits — both the defendants and the majority believe that Alberta Gas has not alleged that it sustained the right kind of injury. They reach this conclusion because they focus on Alberta Gas’s complaint that it would have benefited from a price rise rather than a price fall. DuPont and the Court reason that since lower prices are always in the interest of the consumer plaintiff’s allegation that it suffered from the failure of prices to rise is really nothing but an allegation that plaintiffs suffered from procompetitive activity. This reasoning is simplistic and incorrect.
In order to have standing to sue under the antitrust laws a plaintiff must be complaining of an injury
of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes the defendants’ acts unlawful. The injury should reflect the anticompetitive effect either of the violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the violation.
Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489, 97 S.Ct. 690, 697, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977). In Brunswick, plaintiff attacked a merger under § 7 which defendants conceded, arguendo, was illegal. Plaintiffs were bowling centers in competition with some of the centers illegally acquired by defendant. Plaintiffs claimed that had defendant not made the illegal acquisition, the lanes plaintiffs competed with would have gone out of business, and that as a result plaintiffs’ profits would have risen. The Supreme Court therefore held that a complaint about a loss of profit caused by the acquisition was not a complaint about antitrust injury. The plaintiff in Brunswick did not allege that the merged entity was going to engage in any predatory conduct.
DuPont argues here that Alberta Gas is really only complaining about the fact that the price for methanol did not rise, and that such harm cannot constitute antitrust injury. While it is true that Alberta Gas is complaining about lost profits, the profits were allegedly lost not because DuPont preserved or increased competition — as the defendant in Brunswick was alleged to have done — but because DuPont eliminated competition. The things Conoco allegedly would have done — investing in a new plant and stimulating demand to ensure that there would be a market for that plant’s product — are procompetitive, socially beneficial activities. The prevention of those activities causes a decrease in social welfare. Alberta Gas was allegedly injured by that decrease in social welfare.
Thus the majority is simply — and crucially — incorrect when it states, slip op. at 1243, that “[fjrom the consumer’s standpoint, the development that Alberta anticipated and the basis for its claim — an increase in methanol price — would prove distinctly disadvantageous.” A rise in price is harmful to consumers if it represents only movement along an unchanged demand curve — a movement from point A to point B on the graph below. But here the rise in price would have been caused by a shift to the right of the demand curve — a movement from point A to point C. This shift in the demand curve indicates that the commodity sold has become more useful to consumers.
*1250[[Image here]]
Such a change is indeed socially beneficial, and therefore procompetitive, not anticompetitive and harmful.5 This shift would also benefit Alberta Gas in the long run, increasing its profit, even though it might harm DuPont, lowering its profit, for the reasons I have set out at typescript at 1-2.
The majority thus has no basis to invoke Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1354, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986), for the proposition that “competitors cannot recover antitrust damages for a conspiracy to impose nonprice restraints that have the effect of either raising market price or limiting output.” The Supreme Court’s point there was that one seller in a market will not be injured by anticompetitive activity which, while the demand curve remains unmoved, raises the market price. But here the practice which would have raised price was not anticompetitive, such as “a conspiracy to impose nonprice restraints;” rather, it is alleged here that price would have risen as a result of procompetitive activity which would have stimulated demand. Matsushita says nothing about a
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*1251competitor’s standing to protest the elimination of procompetitive activity.
This discussion also explains why the majority is wrong in characterizing plaintiff's complaint as an attempt to recoup “windfall profits.” See majority opinion at 1243. The authorities cited by the majority — Matsushita once again, and a law review article about Brunswick — characterize as a “windfall” the benefits that one competitor in a market would have received if another competitor engaged in anticompetitive conduct which raised the market price. Here the allegation is that the price would have risen as a result of procompetitive activity. A benefit from increased competition is not a windfall; it is exactly the kind of benefit which the antitrust laws were intended to preserve. This is no less true simply because one of the beneficiaries of this competition is a competitor.
The majority also seeks support from an argument made in Brunswick, but I believe that the majority has misconstrued that argument and so misuses it here. To help identify what it meant by “antitrust injury,” the Supreme Court in Brunswick pointed out that the plaintiffs in that case would have been injured in exactly the same way if the bowling alleys with which they competed had been acquired by someone other than defendant. The Court thus observed that “[r]espondents would have suffered the identical ‘loss’ — but no compensable injury — had the acquired centers instead obtained refinancing or been purchased by ‘shallow pocket’ parents.” 429 U.S. at 487, 97 S.Ct. at 697. The majority attempts to make the same point in this case, arguing that if Conoco had been acquired by another company, not in the methanol market, and that company had terminated Conoco’s plans to make these investments, then Alberta Gas would have suffered in exactly the same way. In that set of circumstances, DuPont concludes and the plaintiff concedes that the merger would not have been illegal under § 7. The anticompetitive motivation which DuPont allegedly had here would have been absent. The majority therefore concludes that plaintiff has not alleged antitrust injury.
I believe the majority’s argument is wrong because it misstates the manner in which the law uses intent to explain the significance of anticompetitive activity. If another company had bought Conoco and terminated the plans, it would have done so because the plans were unwise. DuPont claims that that is why it, too, terminated the plans. But plaintiff claims that DuPont eliminated the plans to protect DuPont’s market power in the methanol market. If that is why DuPont did what it did, then another purchaser probably would not have terminated the investment plans. DuPont’s alleged intention indicates the anti-competitive effect of its actions. While the antitrust laws regulate conduct, as distinguished from intentions, Justice Brandéis explained long ago that
the reason for adopting the particular remedy [and] the purpose or end sought to be attained ... are all relevant facts. This is not because a good intention will save an otherwise objectionable regulation or the reverse; but because knowledge or intent may help the court to interpret facts and to predict consequences.
Chicago Bd. of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231, 238, 38 S.Ct. 242, 244, 62 L.Ed. 683 (1918).
Alberta Gas is arguing that DuPont’s actions have had an anticompetitive effect. Justice Brandéis’ statement in Chicago Board of Trade demonstrates that both the fact that DuPont (rather than another company) bought Conoco, and DuPont’s reason for buying Conoco, are relevant evidence of the purchase’s ultimate effect. The fact that no anticompetitive results would have ensued if Conoco had been bought by General Foods is irrelevant, and does not provide a basis for dismissal for lack of standing in view of Alberta Gas’s allegations about DuPont’s intentions.6
*1252Finally, defendants and the majority draw support for their conclusion that plaintiff lacked standing from the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, - U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 484, 93 L.Ed.2d 427 (1986). There the Court held that Monfort had no standing to challenge a merger when it alleged that the merged entity would lower prices because the plaintiff had not alleged that the defendants would engage in predatory pricing — i.e. pricing below cost.
In the course of that opinion, however, Justice Brennan explicitly warned against precisely the error now made by the majority. The Justice Department, as amicus curiae, argued that no plaintiff should ever have standing to challenge a merger on grounds that the merged entity would engage in predatory pricing because the Justice Department thought that predatory practices are economically irrational and therefore that businesses would virtually never engage in them. Justice Brennan rejected flatly this contention, however, holding:
While firms may engage in the practice only infrequently, there is ample evidence suggesting that the practice does occur. It would be novel indeed for a court to deny standing to party seeking an injunction against threatened injury merely because such injuries rarely occur.
107 S.Ct. at 495 (footnote omitted). The majority here has held squarely that Alberta Gas lacks standing because the actions it challenges would only rarely be anticompetitive. The Supreme Court has just told us that is wrong.

II. The Vertical Claim

I also believe the majority has completely misconstrued the plaintiff’s “vertical” claim for damages. The plaintiff primarily complains about the sales it would have made to Conoco if Conoco had gone through with its plans to build a large network of methanol dealers. The majority has rejected that claim on the ground that as things turned out — i.e. in light of the fact that Conoco’s plans were terminated — Conoco bought only a small amount of methanol on the open market, to fill the methanol demand of its chemical plants; the majority therefore concludes that Alberta Gas’s claim is de minimis. Since no significant damages have been alleged, holds the majority, summary judgment was properly granted for defendant. See majority opinion, typescript at 1245.
With respect, the majority has missed the point. Plaintiff is not complaining about the fact that once Conoco’s coal gasification plans were terminated. Conoco purchased only a bit of methanol on the open market and that Alberta Gas got none of that business. Plaintiff's point is that if DuPont had not purchased Conoco and terminated the coal gasification plans, Conoco would have bought much more, and that Alberta Gas would have sold Conoco much of that increment. I have no idea whether or not that in fact would have happened, but if Alberta Gas is right it has certainly stated a non de minimis claim for damages.
Once this point is clear it is also apparent that the majority errs in relying on the doctrine that vertical mergers cannot be anticompetitive. See majority opinion, typescript at 1245, citing William H. Page, *1253Antitrust Damages and Economic Efficiency, 47 U.Chi.L.Rev. 467 (1980); Phillip Areeda and Donald P. Turner, Antitrust Law § 1004; Robert H. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 226 (1978). Those authorities hold that there is nothing anticompetitive about a vertical merger in which a downstream purchaser of a given product merges with a producer of that product, so that the downstream purchaser’s needs are satisfied entirely within the merged entity instead of being filled on the open market. The assumption in that situation is that the magnitude of the downstream user’s demand remains the same before and after the merger; the only thing that changes is the identity of the supplier. These authorities say, and I certainly agree, that such a change in the name of the seller is not likely to be anticompetitive.
In this case, by contrast, Alberta Gas is not complaining simply that demand which it could have filled is now being filled by DuPont. Alberta Gas is complaining that demand which it could have filled now does not exist, because DuPont terminated the project which would have given rise to the demand. The theory of vertical foreclosure says nothing one way or the other about that argument. It certainly does not hold that the elimination of such new demand has no anticompetitive consequences. And I have already explained why DuPont’s actions may indeed have had anticompetitive effects.
Put another way, Alberta Gas alleges that this is not a vertical merger at all but a horizontal one, in which both companies sell — or were about to sell — methanol. Under this analysis, arguments from the economics of purely vertical mergers are entirely irrelevant.
As DuPont itself has argued, the vertical and horizontal claims are really two parts of a single violation of § 7,7 and I suspect that the majority mischaracterizes Alberta Gas’s vertical claims because it misconceives and rejects the horizontal theory. Having decided that Alberta Gas may not sue on DuPont’s elimination of Conoco’s plans to expand demand, the majority ignores the purchases Conoco would have made from Alberta Gas as a part of those plans. Having ignored those purchases, the majority concludes that there are no vertical damages.
If the demand creation theory is recognized as valid, however, as I have argued it should be, it is also apparent that the vertical claim involves quite a substantial injury rather than the de minimis damages which the majority finds. Thus the majority’s error on the vertical theory is simply a compounding of its mistake concerning the vertical claim.

III. Actual Potential Competition

Because I believe that plaintiff has alleged that it suffered antitrust injury, I believe we also must reach a question about the law on potential competition which defendant offers as an alternative ground for affirmance, see Appellee’s br. at 40 n. 34. The issue has been raised many times in litigation, but no appellate court has ever squarely faced it.
In United States v. Falstaff Brewing Corp., 410 U.S. 526, 93 S.Ct. 1096, 35 L.Ed.2d 475 (1973) and United States v. Marine Bancorp., 418 U.S. 602, 94 S.Ct. 2856, 41 L.Ed.2d 978 (1974), the Supreme Court theorized that two kinds of potential competition might be within the reach of Clayton Act § 7, which prohibits mergers and acquisitions by one company of another if “the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition.” Under the first theory, “perceived potential competition,” the Supreme Court held that competition might be diminished if a company which industry participants had thought might actually enter the market on its own instead simply acquired a company already in that market.
[T]he Court has interpreted § 7 as encompassing what is commonly known as the “wings effect” — the probability that the acquiring firm prompted premerger procompetitive effects within the target market by being perceived by the existing firms in that market as likely to *1254enter de novo. Falstaff, [410 U.S.] at 531-537 [93 S.Ct. at 1099-1103]. The elimination of such present procompetitive effects may render a merger unlawful under § 7.
Marine Bancorp., 418 U.S. at 625, 94 S.Ct. at 2871 (footnote omitted). Perceived potential competition focuses on the premerger effect on prices of the perception that if profits rise, a new company will enter the market and drive down both prices and profits.
The Court has also discussed a second kind of potential competition, which has been called “actual potential competition.” In Marine Bancorp, the Court observed that it
has not previously resolved whether the potential competition doctrine proscribes a market extension merger solely on the ground that such a merger eliminates the prospect for long-term deconcentration of an oligopolistic market that in theory might result if the acquiring firm were forbidden to enter except through a de novo undertaking or through the acquisition of a small existing entrant (a so-called foothold or toehold acquisition). Falstaff expressly reserved this issue.
Id. (footnote omitted). The actual potential competition doctrine concerns the elimination of a company which would otherwise have entered the market either by itself or by acquiring a small company and infusing capital into it. Actual potential competition relates to the effect such a new entry — and its elimination — would have had on prices.
I believe this case forces us to address that question. The issue presented here is slightly different, but I think the differences are irrelevant. This case requires us to assess the legality of a merger which prevented the acquired firm from entering a market which the plaintiff claims the acquired firm would otherwise have entered. Here Alberta Gas argues that, had DuPont not acquired Conoco, Conoco would have proceeded with its plans to enter the methanol market. This claim is not identical to the one made in Marine Bancorp., because here plaintiff does not claim that, but for the acquisition, DuPont would have entered the methanol market itself or made a “toe-hold” acquisition. But, as in Marine Bancorp., the claim is that the merger eliminated a company which would otherwise have actually entered the methanol market.
No court has yet decided whether § 7 authorizes a claim that a merger is illegal because it eliminated actual potential competition. The Supreme Court in Marine Bancorp., and three courts of appeals, have established the elements of such a claim but have never found them all satisfied, so these courts have never actually had to hold that satisfaction of the doctrine’s requirements constituted a violation of § 7. See Tenneco, Inc. v. F.T.C., 689 F.2d 346, 352-55 (2d Cir.1982); United States v. Siemens Corp., 621 F.2d 499, 506 (2d Cir.1980); Republic of Texas Corp. v. Board of Governors, 649 F.2d 1026, 1048 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981) (discussing Clayton Act standard incorporated into § 3 of the Bank Holding Company Act); Mercantile Texas Corp. v. Board of Governors, 638 F.2d 1255, 1265 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981) (same; stating that the actual potential competition “doctrine has logical force and is consonant with the language and policy of the Clayton Act” but that “[i]n the absence of necessary findings by the Board, however, we will not decide whether the doctrine adequately describes a violation of the Clayton Act standard” incorporated into the Bank Holding Company Act); F.T.C. v. Atlantic Richfield, 549 F.2d 289, 293-94 (4th Cir.1977); see also Donald F. Turner, Conglomerate Mergers and Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 1313, 1362-86 (1965) (describing and supporting the doctrine). It seems quite likely, however, that if a case were to come along which presented all the elements of the claim, the courts would decide that the claim is a valid one under § 7. I think this is such a case.
As it is usually presented, the elements of an actual potential competition claim are that
1. the relevant market is oligopolistic;
2. absent the acquisition, the acquiring firm would have entered the market in *1255the near future either de novo or through acquisition of a little company; and
3. such entry by the acquiring firm carried a substantial likelihood of ultimately producing deconcentration of the market or other significant procompetitive effects.
Tenneco, Inc. v. F.T.C. 689 F.2d 346, 352 (2d Cir.1982), citing Marine Bancorp., 418 U.S. at 630, 94 S.Ct. at 2874, and a number of other circuit court cases.
I think that Alberta Gas has properly alleged each of these elements. Defendant agrees that the relevant market is oligopolistic; during the relevant time period two firms controlled 50%, four firms 70%, and nine firms essentially 100% of the industry.
The second claim is a bit tricky. In the typical potential competition case the alleged potential competitor is the acquiring firm. Here the alleged potential competitor is the acquired firm, Conoco. The § 7 cases are not structured this way, and no cases like this appear to have been brought under §§ 1 and 2. But this difference in structure certainly should not make any difference in result; the fear is still that an entrant into the market is being eliminated. Indeed, insofar as the difference matters at all it suggests that the actual potential competition doctrine is more fitting here than in the typical case. In most instances the difficulty comes in proving that, but for the challenged acquisition, the acquiring firm would have entered the market in some more socially beneficial way. Here there is no question that Conoco was about to enter the methanol market in a big way and that DuPont’s purchase of Conoco prevented that entrance.
I also think that Alberta Gas has adequately alleged the third element of a successful claim. DuPont has attacked this aspect of Alberta Gas’s case by arguing that plaintiff has not alleged the loss of “procompetitive effects,” though DuPont has cast this argument in the standing context. I have already explained why I believe that argument is wrong.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons I would reverse the grant of summary judgment on standing grounds and remand this case to the district court. I would instruct that this remand is without prejudice to a renewed summary judgment motion, made on the ground that the record did not contain sufficient evidence to warrant putting plaintiff’s case before a jury.

. It should be noted, however, that the record contains very strong evidence that Conoco was indeed committed to develop a coal-to-methanol plant, as Alberta Gas alleges. Indeed, Conoco’s plans to develop methanol were sufficiently firm that immediately before the merger, Conoco had begun advertising those plans to the public. See Appellant’s opening br. at 12, citing A 7459, the text of a television advertisement broadcast during the 1981 Indianapolis 500 auto race, which stated that “Conoco will soon be testing passenger cars powered by methanol, *1248and we’re planning to produce this fuel from coal.”

. This Court may review the record independently to determine whether there is an alternative ground for affirmance. But I believe that the size of this record suggests that that task be performed in the first instance by the district court.

. While the complaint also seeks injunctive relief, Alberta Gas did not seek a preliminary injunction. My understanding is that, at this juncture, Alberta Gas is interested primarily in money damages.

. The majority concentrates its discussion of the vertical claims on the sales Alberta Gas would have made to Conoco if the latter company had not closed down its chemical manufacturing plants in New Jersey and Texas. As I explain more fully below, see typescript at 12-15, I do not understand Alberta Gas to focus on this point.

. The majority’s error in focusing on the rise in price can also be seen clearly from the fact that Alberta Gas’s complaint about lost profits would be essentially the same even if the market price for methanol did not rise at all. If all suppliers produced methanol with the same cost structure as Alberta Gas — i.e., at constant marginal cost— the market price would not have risen at all in response to an increase in demand. But profits would still have risen if demand increased. As the graph below explains, profits would have risen from the amount represented by area A to the sum of that area and area B. And Alberta Gas would still have lost profits as a result of DuPont’s anticompetitive actions.

. I also do not understand the majority’s Brunswick -based argument that Alberta Gas’s claim offends the principle that a plaintiffs injury in a § 7 case must stem from that which makes the merger illegal. See majority opinion, typescript at 16-17, citing Brunswick, 429 U.S. at 487 n. 12, *125297 S.Ct. at 697 n. 12. The majority observes that if DuPont later decides to go through with Conoco’s plans to develop a coal-to-methanol plant, Alberta Gas will receive the same profits it would have received if Conoco had developed the plant itself. See majority opinion, typescript at 17. The majority concludes from this that "Alberta’s injuries were not proximately caused by the anticompetitive effects of the DuPont-Conoco merger, [so that] they do not flow from” that which made the merger illegal under § 7 of the Clayton Act. The majority’s point appears to be that because DuPont could have decided after the merger to continue with the plans, the merger itself is not the source of Alberta Gas’s injury.
Alberta Gas’s point is that the merger was illegal because DuPont used it as a means to eliminate Conoco’s coal-to-methanol plant. If DuPont had bought Conoco and continued Conoco’s plans to build the plant, the merger would not have been illegal in the first place. The thing which made the merger illegal is therefore the thing which caused Alberta Gas’s injury.

. See Appellee’s br. at 24-25.