Sherman Antitrust Act
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Sherman Antitrust Act: Definition from Answers.com
Sherman Antitrust Act Federal legislation passed in 1890 prohibiting 'monopolies or attempts to monopolize' and 'contracts, combinations, or
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Antitrust Division Manual, Chapter II. Statutory Provisions and ...
Offenses that Arise from Conduct Accompanying a Sherman Act Violation ... 1. Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-7. Sherman Act § 1, 15 U.S.C. § 1 as amended ...
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Sherman Antitrust Act and monopolies
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. ... The Sherman Antitrust Act (the full text of which can be found here) authorized ...
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... America's free market economy, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 ... The Sherman Antitrust Act forms the foundation and the basis for most federal ...
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Sherman Antitrust Act - Infoplease.com
Related content from HighBeam Research on: Sherman Antitrust Act ... ( violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act) (Law) (Column) (Folio: the Magazine for ...
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The Sherman Act
AntiTrust.Org. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) ... Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in ...
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Our Documents - Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. ... The Sherman Antitrust Act was based on the constitutional power of Congress to ...
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The 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act
... Sherman Antitrust ... of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act because of excessive ... restraints to trade mentioned in the Sherman Antitrust Act. ...
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The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman ActAs it was formally designated by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act in 1976., July 2, 1890, ch. 647, , ), was the first United States Federal government of the United States action to limit cartels and monopoly. It is the oldest of all U.S. antitrust laws.
The Sherman Act provides: "Every contract, combination in the form of Trust (19th century) or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".See . The Act also provides: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony . . "See . The Act put responsibility upon government attorneys and district courts to pursue and investigate Trust (19th century), companies and organizations suspected of violating the Act.
The Act was signed by President of the United States Benjamin Harrison in 1890 and was named after its author, United States Senate John Sherman (politician), an Ohio Republican, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the Secretary of Treasury under President Rutherford Hayes, and Secretary of State under President William McKinley. After passing in the Senate on April 8, 1890 by a vote of 51-1, the legislation passed unanimously (242-0) in the House of Representatives on June 20, 1890.
The Act was not used in court cases for some years. President Theodore Roosevelt used the Act extensively in his antitrust campaign, including to divide the Northern Securities Company. President William Howard Taft used the Act to split the American Tobacco Company.
Despite its name, the Act was not aimed at trusts in particular, but at any form which would create a "restraint of trade". The word "antitrust" was used because the Act was initially proposed to break up the Standard Oil trust. Ironically, by the time antitrust laws were finally brought to bear against the company, it was no longer using the form of a trust. The term "antitrust law" has persisted in the United States for what the rest of the world calls "competition law," even though antitrust laws are almost never used against trusts.
Although the Act was aimed at regulating businesses, it was not specific to them: the prohibition is of combinations in restraint of trade. It was used for many years as an anti-union tool, until that use was revoked in 1914 by the Clayton Antitrust Act.
The Act was intended to prevent arrangements designed to, or which tend to, increase the cost of goods to the consumer. It was not specifically intended to prevent the dominance of an industry by a specific company, despite misconceptions to the contrary. According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company that "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act. The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply .
Criticism of the Sherman Antitrust Act Critics question whether the Act improves competition and benefits consumers, or merely aids inefficient businesses at the expense of larger, more innovative ones. Alan Greenspan, in his essay entitled Antitrust condemns the Sherman Act as stifling innovation and harming society. He says: "No one will ever know what new products, processes, machines, and cost-saving mergers failed to come into existence, killed by the Sherman Act before they were born. No one can ever compute the price that all of us have paid for that Act which, by inducing less effective use of capital, has kept our standard of living lower than would otherwise have been possible."
Others debate whether the goal of antitrust legislation should be increased competition or lower prices. For example, arguing in favor of the Act in 1890, United States House of Representatives William E. Mason said "trusts have made products cheaper, have reduced prices; but if the price of oil, for instance, were reduced to one cent a barrel, it would not right the wrong done to people of this country by the trusts which have destroyed legitimate competition and driven honest men from legitimate business enterprise."Congressional Record, 51st Congress, 1st session, House, June 20, 1890, p. 4100. On the other hand, some believe that as long as a monopoly is not a coercive monopoly where a firm is securely insulated from potential competition, it will keep prices low in order to discourage competition from arising. Hence, they believe legal action is uncalled for, and wrongly harms the firm and consumers.
Some believe that antitrust laws have a protectionist effect. Economist Thomas DiLorenzo notes that Senator Sherman sponsored the 1890 William McKinley tariff just three months after the Sherman Act, and agrees with The New York Times which wrote on October 1, 1890: "That so-called Anti-Trust law was passed to deceive the people and to clear the way for the enactment of this...law relating to the tariff" and said Sherman attacked trusts because they "subverted the tariff system; they undermined the policy of government to protect American industries by levying duties on imported goods." Dilorenzo says: "Protectionists did not want prices paid by consumers to fall. But they also understood that to gain political support for high tariffs they would have to assure the public that industries would not combine to increase prices to politically prohibitive levels. Support for both an antitrust law and tariff hikes would maintain high prices while avoiding the more obvious bilking of consumers."DiLorenzo, Thomas, Cato Handbook for Congress, Antitrust.
Another possible angle is that provided by energy rents, that is the difference between the value (to producer or consumer) of energy and its cost. The Sherman Act, being directed specifically at John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil trust, can be seen as a precursor to the Public Utilities Commissions established in the 1930s in response to electrification and the corresponding profit opportunities. Historically, new energy sources have yielded rents to both consumers and producers (of energy). The mood in the 1880s was that no one individual should be given reign over as large a chunk of energy rents, despite the fact that Standard Oil's gas, kerosene, and oil prices were below those of its competitors.
See also
- Alcoa
- American Tobacco Company
- Bell System divestiture
- United States v. Microsoft
- Northern Securities Company
- Ticketmaster
- Standard Oil
- Tying (commerce)
- Antitrust
- Cartel
- Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914
- List of corporate executives charged with crimes
- Dynamic random access memory DRAM price fixing
- Monopoly
- Price fixing
- Resale price maintenance
Notes
External links Official websites
- U.S. Department of Justice: Antitrust Division
- U.S. Department of Justice: Antitrust Division - text of SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-7
Additional information
- Antitrust Division's "Corporate Leniency Policy"
- Antitrust by Alan Greenspan
- Dr. Edward W. Younkins (February 19, 2000). "Antitrust Laws Should Be Abolished".
- DiLorenzo, Thomas Cato Handbook for Congress, Antitrust.
- Sherman Anti-Trust Act Full text and commentary
Sherman Antitrust Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act [1], July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. § 1 – 7) was the first United States Federal statute to limit cartels and ...
Sherman Antitrust Act — Infoplease.com
Encyclopedia Sherman Antitrust Act. Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890, first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts; it was named for Senator John Sherman.
The Sherman Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) Section 1. Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal; penalty. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in ...
Sherman Antitrust Act. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001 ...
Sherman Antitrust Act. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07 ... 1890, first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts; it was named for Senator John ...
Sherman Antitrust Act - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Sherman ...
In US history, an act of Congress 1890, named after senator John Sherman (1823-1900) of Ohio, designed to prevent powerful corporations from monopolizing industries and restraining ...
Antitrust Division Manual, Chapter II. Statutory Provisions and ...
A. Statutes Enforced by the Antitrust Division 1. Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-7. Sherman Act § 1, 15 U.S.C. § 1 as amended by the Antitrust Criminal Penalty ...
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US CODE: Title 15,1. Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal ...
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be ...
Sherman Antitrust Act and monopolies
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit abusive monopolies, and in some ways it remains the most important.
Sherman Antitrust Act Content at ZDNet UK
News Articles, Whitepapers, Downloads, Opinion and Resources relating to Sherman Antitrust Act ... DoJ Filing Hits MS On Four Counts. News In a separate document, the 19 state ...