Antitrust injury

From Conservapedia - Reading time: 2 min

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"Antitrust injury" is a concept in antitrust law that limits standing to those who have suffered an "injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants' acts unlawful." Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489 (1977). "It should, in short, be 'the type of loss that the claimed violations… would be likely to cause.'" Id. (quoting Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, 395 U.S. at 125.).

An overview of antitrust injury is provided at Daniel v. Am. Bd. of Emergency Med., 428 F.3d 408, 441 (2d Cir. 2005).

Beware of misleading reliance on Atl. Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co. (ARCO), 495 U.S. 328 (1990) and Brunswick Corp., as explained here:

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The Supreme Court's decisions in ARCO and Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477 (1977), 97 S. Ct. 690, 50 L. Ed. 2d 701 — the principal authorities upon which the LIBOR I Court relied, see 935 F. Supp. 2d at 689-92, and upon which Defendants rely (although not as heavily) here (Defs.' Br. 26) — do not call for a different conclusion. As the FX Court explained, those cases "were brought by competitors against their rivals, not by consumers alleging the per se wrong of horizontal price-fixing against colluding competitors." 74 F. Supp. 3d at 598. The cases thus stand for the uncontroversial proposition that a competitor cannot use the antitrust laws to recover lost profits as a result of being confronted with an increase in competition.

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Alaska Elec. Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp., 175 F. Supp. 3d 44, 60 n.2 (S.D.N.Y. 2016)

Additional decisions used to deny antitrust standing[edit]

• Pulse Network, L.L.C. v. Visa, Inc., 30 F.4th 480, 488 (5th Cir. 2022) (citing Dr.'s Hosp. of Jefferson, Inc. v. Se. Med. All., Inc., 123 F.3d 301, 305 (5th Cir. 1997)).
• Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Rsch., Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 125, 89 S. Ct. 1562, 23 L. Ed. 2d 129 (1969)).
• Pulse Network, 30 F.4th at 488 (quoting Atl. Richfield Co., 495 U.S. at 339).

• "Typically, parties with antitrust injury are either competitors, purchasers, or consumers in the relevant market." Waggoner v. Denbury Onshore, LLC, 612 F. App'x 734, 737 (5th Cir. 2015).

• In Norris v. Hearst Trust, 500 F.3d 454, 466 (5th Cir. 2007), the court held that an antitrust violation would tend to cause injury to the defendant's consumers or competitors rather than to the plaintiff, who fit in neither category.

Decisions that support antitrust standing[edit]

• Mid-Texas Commc'ns Systems, Inc. v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 615 F.2d 1372, 1387 (5th Cir. 1980) (more on the issue an antitrust violation, not antitrust injury)

• Six Twenty-Nine Productions, Inc. v. Rollins Telecasting, Inc., 365 F.2d 478, 482 (5th Cir. 1966) (holding that Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits "an enterprise from refusing to deal with another business entity when this course of action is undertaken in furtherance of monopolization of the relevant market"). But see Waggoner, 612 F. App'x at 738 (holding that there is no antitrust injury when the alleged injury is the result of conduct in a market where the plaintiff is not a participant).

• Lorain Journal Co. v. United States, 342 U.S. 143, 72 S. Ct. 181, 96 L. Ed. 162 (1951). In that case, a local newspaper refused to accept advertising from merchants who also advertised on a new radio station. Id. at 149-50. The Supreme Court held that such a refusal violated the Sherman Act. Id. at 152, 154. But in Lorain Journal, unlike here, standing was not at issue. Further, the radio station and the newspaper, although different media forms, were competitors in the local advertisement market. Id. at 147.

• United States v. Terminal Railroad Ass'n, 224 U.S. 383, 32 S. Ct. 507, 56 L. Ed. 810 (1912). But standing was not at issue in that case.