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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150 (1940), is a 1940 United States Supreme Court decision widely cited for the proposition that price-fixing is illegal per se. The Socony case was, at least until recently, the most widely cited case on price fixing. The language used in the Socony opinion has been widely quoted in subsequent judicial opinions. Some of the most widely quoted passages from Socony follow: Any combination which tampers with price structures is engaged in an unlawful activity. Even though the members of the price-fixing group were in no position to control the market, to the extent that they raised, lowered, or stabilized prices they would be directly interfering with the free play of market forces. The Act places all such schemes beyond the pale and protects that vital part of our economy against any degree of interference. Congress has not left with us the determination of whether or not particular price-fixing schemes are wise or unwise, healthy or destructive. It has not permitted the age-old cry of ruinous competition and competitive evils to be a defense to price-fixing conspiracies. It has no more allowed genuine or fancied competitive abuses as a legal justification for such schemes than it has the good intentions of the members of the combination. Nor is it important that the prices paid by the combination were not fixed in the sense that they were uniform and inflexible. Price-fixing . . . has no such limited meaning. An agreement to pay or charge rigid, uniform prices would be an illegal agreement under the Sherman Act. But so would agreements to raise or lower prices whatever machinery for price-fixing was used. . . . Hence, prices are fixed . . . if the range within which purchases or sales will be made is agreed upon, if the prices paid or charged are to be at a certain level or on ascending or descending scales, if they are to be uniform, or if by various formulae they are related to the market prices. They are fixed because they are agreed upon. Under the Sherman Act a combination formed for the purpose and with the effect of raising, depressing, fixing, pegging, or stabilizing the price of a commodity in interstate or foreign commerce is illegal per se. ... Proof that a combination was formed for the purpose of fixing prices and that it caused them to be fixed or contributed to that result is proof of the completion of a price-fixing conspiracy under § 1 of the Act. [A] conspiracy to fix prices violates § 1 of the Act though no overt act is shown, though it is not established that the conspirators had the means available for accomplishment of their objective, and though the conspiracy embraced but a part of the interstate or foreign commerce in the commodity. Whatever economic justification particular price-fixing agreements may be thought to have, the law does not permit an inquiry into their reasonableness. They are all banned. For almost 60 years after the Socony decision, the categorical language of that decision's statements, such as those quoted above, went substantially without qualification. At the end of the 20th century, however, the Supreme Court began to qualify the absoluteness of the Socony rules. In State Oil Co. v. Khan, and then Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., the Supreme Court held that vertical price fixing (for example, agreed upon between manufacturers and retailers of their products) is no longer to be considered a per se violation of the Sherman Act, but should be evaluated under a rule of reason. Horizontal price fixing among competing sellers, however, is still considered a per se violation of the Sherman Act. (en)
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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., (en)
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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. (en)
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- Price-fixing is illegal per se. (en)
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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. (en)
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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150 (1940), is a 1940 United States Supreme Court decision widely cited for the proposition that price-fixing is illegal per se. The Socony case was, at least until recently, the most widely cited case on price fixing. The language used in the Socony opinion has been widely quoted in subsequent judicial opinions. Some of the most widely quoted passages from Socony follow: Whatever economic justification particular price-fixing agreements may be thought to have, the law does not permit an inquiry into their reasonableness. They are all banned. (en)
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- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. (en)
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- (en)
- United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. (en)
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