Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of July 2, 1890 was the first source of law for US competition law . In view of the emergence of dominant trusts , cartels and monopolies, it was intended to limit their great market power . After the law was passed, it was hardly used at first; only under President Theodore Roosevelt was it more widely used.
history
The law, named after its author, John Sherman , was enacted by President Benjamin Harrison . The bill received a clear majority in the Senate and was even adopted unanimously in the House of Representatives . The reason for the law was the rapid development of the economy in the USA with the simultaneous emergence of monopolies (e.g. Standard Oil Company , Carnegie Steel Company , Accessory Transit Company ), which exploited their power by setting inflated prices and against them there were violent protests from the population. This became particularly clear in the case of rail transport, for which the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 .
The Republican Senator John Sherman justified the law by stating that there had been monopolies before, but no such "giants" with a monopoly position and feared a strengthening of the socialists if this problem were not dealt with. There was resistance to the law from law firms close to the company (today, however, the law is largely accepted and only a few lobbies are promoting its complete abolition because of it) and attempts to reinterpret the law against its purpose. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this interpretation by the lawyers of the sugar monopoly E. C. Knight Company and in 1895 also restricted the application of the Antitrust Act in a series of corporate-friendly decisions with a majority decision. In the case of United States v. EC Knight Co. stated that such a production monopoly was not a superordinate trade and could therefore not be regulated by the state by law. Instead, according to the interpretation of the court, supra-regional strikes (encompassing more than one state) could be seen as a violation of the law. This very controversial judgment was never officially withdrawn, but the later court refrained from making this decision.
After the law was passed, it was hardly used at first, and it was only used more widely under President Theodore Roosevelt. The criminal prosecution of the organizing monopolies as provided for in the Sherman Antitrust Act was, however, refrained from. It was followed in 1914 by the Clayton Antitrust Act , which supplemented and specified the law. From the 1920s the law was hardly applied again and only updated and applied again during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt with the Robinson-Patman Act .
content
The law contained a general ban on monopoly . Furthermore, horizontal and vertical agreements were generally prohibited. The law also provided for the possibility of unbundling , i.e. H. Companies with a monopoly position could be split up under certain conditions. When the law was passed, a fine of up to $ 5,000 and / or a prison term of up to one year was provided. The penalty was later increased to today (2005) up to US $ 10 million for corporations and US $ 1 million and / or up to ten years imprisonment for individuals .
cases
- American Tobacco was unbundled under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1911.
- Standard Oil was indicted by the US government on November 8, 1906, and the unbundling was ordered on May 15, 1911.
- The Motion Picture Patents Company , an oligopoly that sought to control the film industry through patent rights, was declared illegal in 1915.
- DuPont was broken into several pieces in 1912 because of a monopoly on explosives.
- With the verdict against Paramount Pictures in 1948, the end of the Hollywood studio system was heralded. The studios had to part with their cinema chains , which is why the ruling is considered to be trend-setting for vertical integration that hinders competition . Furthermore, were the booking block prohibited: cinemas were previously film prints only book in rental packages and had as at least four other films (so-called. B-movies ) rent to the box office with the movie star (s. Star system to show).
- DuPont had to sell its shares in General Motors in 1957 because of market dominance.
- AT&T was unbundled on January 8, 1982 after being indicted by the Department of Justice in 1974 . This case is considered to be one of the most significant on the basis of the law.
- IBM was indicted on the basis of the law in 1969, and in the same year it unbundled its hardware and software offerings . The court case did not open until 1975 and ended in 1982.
- Microsoft was also charged in 1991 with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the case ended in 1994 with a settlement.
See also
literature
- James B. Townsend: Extraterritorial Antitrust: The Sherman Antitrust Act And Us Business Abroad. Routledge, London 2019, ISBN 978-0-367-02127-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ ourdocuments.gov: Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890 ), accessed on July 1, 2010
- ↑ LInfo.org: The Sherman Antitrust Act , accessed 11 August 2010
- ^ Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States . Harper Perennial, New York 2005, ISBN 0-06-083865-5 , p. 260
- ↑ see Simon Johnson : A Roosevelt Moment for America's Megabanks? , July 14, 2010
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica: United States v. EC Knight Company
- ↑ UNITED STATES VEC KNIGHT CO., 156 US 1 (1895)
- ^ Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States. Harper Perennial, New York 2005, ISBN 0-06-083865-5 , p. 351
- ^ The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press.
- ^ Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States. Library of Congress , accessed May 14, 2021 .
- ↑ Thomas J. Watson Jr., Peter Petre, "Father, Son & Co. - My Life at IBM and Beyond," Bantam Bopok, 1990, pp. 376-389
- ^ Emerson W. Pugh, "Building IBM - Shaping an Industry and Its Technology," The MIT Press, 1995, pp. 319-320
- ↑ Hagley Museum and Library: IBM antitrust suit records ( Memento of the original dated February 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 22, 2012.
