PRICE THEORY, COMPETITION, AND THE RULE OF REASON

Alan J. Meese1

Everyone knows that antitrust law should protect and further “competition.” But what

exactly is competition? A grocer might “compete” by (falsely) claiming that her rival is selling

poisoned beef or (falsely) claiming that her own beef is more nutritious. She might also price below

her own costs or those of her rival, driving him out of business and taking over the market, at least

for a time. A firm that makes film might “compete” against its rivals by inventing a better film or

by redesigning a popular camera to use only its brand of film, expanding its own market share as a

result.

While each of these practices is “competitive” in one sense, any rational society

should distinguish among them. All would applaud the invention of a new film, but most would

agree that slander and false advertising are not “competition” in any sense that society wishes to

embrace. The distinction between these practices could rest on some abstract conception of

(legitimate) “competition.” Most, however, would adopt a more instrumental definition,

distinguishing among various practices based upon their perceived social utility. Such an approach

would treat as “competitive” any practice that, under the circumstances, would seem to further

society’s welfare when compared to the status quo.

1
Visiting Professor of Law, The University of Virginia; Cabell Research Professor of Law, The
College of William and Mary. J.D., The University of Chicago, A.B., The College of William and Mary.
The author thanks George Cohen, Paul Mahoney, Steven Salop, George Triantis, and participants in a faculty
workshop at the University of Virginia for helpful questions and comments on an earlier version of this
article. The William and Mary School of Law supported this project with a generous summer research grant.
Felicia Burton assisted in preparation of the manuscript.

1
 If “competition” however defined, is our desideratum, then it might seem that its

antithesis, cooperation, is a bad thing. Not so fast. To be sure, Ford and General Motors should not

“cooperate” when setting prices. But what if the same two firms merge, eliminating competition

between them while at the same time realizing significant economies of scale that enhance the new

firm’s ability to compete in the larger marketplace? Similarly, two or more employers should not

“cooperate” when setting the wages of their respective employees. However, what if a college sports

league adopts a rule forbidding members to pay their “student-athletes” more than tuition plus room

and board, claiming that the policy prevents “college” football from deteriorating into semi-pro

football?2 Finally, grocers should not divide territories among themselves. Nevertheless, what if

dozens of small grocers pool their resources to form a joint venture that develops a private label

brand and assigns each member a particular territory in which it will have the exclusive right — and

thus powerful incentives — to promote and sell the brand?3

As each of these examples should show, socially useful “competition” often requires

some cooperation, cooperation that reduces or even eliminates rivalry between the cooperating

parties. Indeed, when we speak of “a firm” engaged in “unilateral” activities, we are almost always

referring to what economists call a “nexus of contracts” between employees, managers and suppliers

of capital, contracts that snuff out competition between the parties to them. (Partners at Skadden,

Arps do not bid against each other for the labor of associates.) If society defines as “competitive”

all marketplace activity that enhances its welfare, then many forms of cooperation, even those that

2
See NCAA v. Bd. of Regents of the University Of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984).
3
See United States v. TOPCO, 405 U.S. 596 (1972).

2
eliminate “competition” between cooperating parties, are “competitive” in the sense that is relevant

for antitrust purposes.

A society that seeks to encourage useful “competition” must construct an institutional

framework that channels individual initiative in “competitive” directions.4 Thus, society must

prevent those “unilateral” acts, like slander, that reduce welfare. It must also enforce those contracts

that implement useful cooperation. Finally, it must forbid those agreements that entail “undue” or

“harmful” cooperation and thereby undermine society’s welfare.5

Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which forbids contracts “in restraint of trade,” polices

the line between acceptable (“competitive”) and unacceptable (“anticompetitive”) cooperation.6

Like “competition,” the term “restraint of trade” does not define itself; all contracts, like all

cooperation, restrain trade or competition in some sense. For nearly a century, then, courts have

expressly held that the Sherman Act forbids only unreasonable restraints, usually purporting to

judge “reasonableness” according to economic effect. In modern parlance, courts applying this

“Rule of Reason” ask whether a contract “promotes” competition or, instead, “destroys” it, by

creating or exercising market power.

4
See F.A. Hayek, Free Enterprise And Competitive Order, 110-114 in INDIVIDUALISM AND
ECON OM IC ORDER (1948). See also Ronald H. Coase, The Institutional Structure Of Production, 82 Am.
Econ. Rev. 713, 717-18 (1992) (background structure of legal entitlements can affect nature of economic
activity and thus allocation of resources).
5
See Hayek, Free Enterprise And Competitive Order, at 115 (“We cannot regard ‘freedom of
contract’ as a real answer to our problems if we know that not all contracts ought to be made enforceable and
in fact are bound to argue that contracts ‘in restraint of trade’ ought not be enforced.”).
6
Section 2, by contrast, polices unilateral acts. See Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp.,
467 U.S. 752 (1984) (explaining the respective domains of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act).

3
 Some contracts are so plainly harmful that courts condemn them with little analysis,

deeming them “unreasonable per se.” Most contracts survive such condemnation, however, and

undergo more careful scrutiny, under what courts (redundantly) call “the Rule of Reason.” Courts,

scholars and the enforcement agencies have articulated a three step test to govern analysis under this

Rule of Reason. First, a plaintiff must establish a prima facie case by showing that the restraint

produces tangible anticompetitive harm, a showing that usually consists of proof of “actual

detrimental effects” such as increased price or reduced output. Second, the defendants must prove

that their agreement produces “procompetitive” benefits that outweigh the harm implicit in plaintiff’s

prima facie case. Third, even if the defendants can make such a showing, the plaintiff can still

prevail by proving that the defendants can achieve the same benefits by means of a “less restrictive

alternative.” This three part test, it is said, helps courts distinguish those contracts that “harm” or

“destroy” competition, by creating or exercising market power, from those that promote it.

This article offers a critique of the modern Rule of Reason and the vision of

“competition” on which it depends. As shown below, the present structure of Rule of Reason

analysis as articulated by courts, the enforcement agencies and most leading scholars rests on an

outmoded model of “competition” and is thus inherently biased against contractual integration that

produces non-technological efficiencies. More precisely, the modern structure of Rule of Reason

analysis rests upon a vision of competition derived from neoclassical price theory, the economic

paradigm that dominated industrial organization for much of the twentieth century. According to

this paradigm, “competition” consists of constant technological rivalry between autonomous firms,

unconstrained by so-called “non-standard” contracts, that is, agreements that constrain the discretion

of purchasers and competitors. This rivalry, it is said, results in an “equilibrium” of “competitive”

4
prices, output, and other terms of trade, an equilibrium that maximizes social welfare. Within this

paradigm, any contractual arrangement that produces output, prices or other terms of trade that depart

from the “competitive” baseline is prima facie “anticompetitive” and properly subject to

condemnation absent concrete proof of some justification that “outweighs” the harm.

Price theory’s definition of “competition” drives each aspect of the modern Rule of

Reason described above. For instance, decisions allowing plaintiffs to establish a prima facie case

by proving “actual detrimental effects” rest upon a presumption that any departure from the prices

or other terms of trade produced by technological rivalry reflects an “anticompetitive” exercise of

market power. Similarly, the requirement that procompetitive benefits “offset” or “outweigh”

anticompetitive effects by reducing prices or preventing their increase rests upon price theory’s

partial equilibrium trade-off model and its assumption that any benefits resulting from a contract or

transaction coexist with anticompetitive effects reflected in a prima facie case. Given this

assumption, courts naturally conclude that any benefits produced by such a contract coexist with

anticompetitive harm, harm that courts must “balance” against benefits. Indeed, the same

assumption, i.e., that benefits necessarily coexist with anticompetitive harm, drives the requirement

that, where possible, defendants achieve any procompetitive benefits through means less restrictive

of “competition.”

Each of the price-theoretic assumptions animating the current structure of Rule of

Reason analysis is inconsistent with recent advances in economic theory, in particular, transaction

cost economics (TCE). According to TCE, technological rivalry unconstrained by non-standard

contracts can produce suboptimal results, as firms and consumers struggle to overcome various costs

of transacting in an atomistic market. As a result, the transaction cost paradigm assumes that non-

5
standard contracts are presumptively efforts to overcome these costs, thus better serving consumers

and society at large. On the other hand, price-theoretic “competition” — technological rivalry

unconstrained by non-standard contracts — will most often result in a market failure, that is, output,

price and other terms of trade different from those desired by consumers and society at large.

Properly understood, then, “competition” can take a contractual form and includes most such

restraints, which need not involve or create market power but instead help firms and consumers

better approximate the price, output and other terms of trade that a well-functioning market would

produce.

Of course, TCE is not new to antitrust. In recent decades, the Supreme Court has

often embraced TCE when determining whether or not a contract is unlawful “ per se.” Applying

TCE, the Court has held that certain contracts once deemed unlawful per se may in fact attenuate or

overcome market failure with the result that courts should evaluate such agreements under the more

forgiving “Rule of Reason.” Such decisions implicitly recognize that contracts producing price,

output or other terms of trade different from the status quo ante can be beneficial, and there is no

reason to confine this reasoning to decisions policing the boundaries of the per se rule.

TCE and its vision of “contractual competition” undermine each of the three main

aspects of the Rule of Reason described above. To begin with, application of transaction cost

reasoning refutes those decisions and enforcement policies holding that proof of “actual detrimental

effects” suffices to establish a prima facie case. To be precise, where defendants avoid per se

condemnation by arguing plausibly that a restraint overcomes market failure, proof that the

agreement results in price, output, or other terms of trade that depart from those produced by price-

theoretic “competition” should not give rise to a presumption that the restraint reflects any exercise

6
of market power. Instead, such proof is at least equally consistent with a conclusion that the

agreement is a form of contractual competition that overcomes market failure and thus enhances

social welfare. Therefore, such proof should not give rise to a prima facie case under the Rule of

Reason. By adopting a contrary approach, the Supreme Court, lower courts and the enforcement

agencies have clung to an outmoded vision of competition inconsistent with the more modern vision

it has often embraced in the per se context.

TCE also undermines the standards courts currently employ to evaluate justifications

defendants offer for non-standard contractual integration that is prima facie “anticompetitive.”

Market failure often produces price, output, or quality that departs from the optimal level. Non-

standard contracts can enhance social welfare precisely because they alter the terms of trade

produced by an unrestrained market. Thus, proof that a non-standard contract produces benefits

otherwise deemed cognizable under the Rule of Reason suggests that any increase in prices, for

instance, reflects the procompetitive elimination of market failure. Such an increase need not reflect

an exercise of market power, with the result that there are no “harms” to balance against benefits.

As a result, proof that a contractual restraint produces procompetitive benefits by eliminating a

market failure should rebut a prima facie case, regardless whether this proof tends to show that the

agreement reduces prices.

At the same time, courts and enforcement agencies should abandon their

consideration of so-called “less restrictive alternatives” when conducting Rule of Reason analysis.

Consideration of such alternatives depends upon an assumption that procompetitive benefits

necessarily coexist with anticompetitive effects once a plaintiff has established a prima facie case.

Because such effects coexist, it is said, antitrust law should encourage defendants to adopt restraints

7
that achieve the same benefits while harming “competition” less. Once a defendant shows that a

restraint attenuates a market failure, however, any presumption of anticompetitive effects should

collapse, undermining any assertion that harms and benefits coexist and that defendants should

achieve benefits through a less “anticompetitive” method.

Part I of this article examines the normative and jurisprudential foundations of the

Rule of Reason, showing that the rule requires courts to employ the best available economic theory

to determine whether a challenged contract advances consumer welfare or instead harms consumers

by creating or exercising market power. Part II reviews the standards that courts and the enforcement

agencies apply when conducting analysis under the Rule of Reason, standards that leading scholars

have also embraced. Part III outlines the competing models of competition that price theory and

TCE have produced as well as the influence of these respective models on antitrust doctrine. Part

IV argues that the current structure of Rule of Reason analysis reflects the outmoded price-theoretic

vision of competition and is therefore unduly biased against those non-standard agreements that

plausibly overcome market failure.

I. THE RULE OF REASON

A. Normative Foundations — Preventing Monopoly Or Its Consequences:

The language of the Sherman Act seems straightforward, banning, as it does,

“restraints of trade or commerce among the several states.”6 The “plain language” of the statute

would seem to call into question any contract with an interstate nexus.7 All contracts, it seems,

6
15 U.S.C. § 1.
7
PHILIP AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST LAW ¶ 1501 (1986). See also NCAA v. Bd. Of Regents of the
University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85, 98 (1984) (noting that every contract “restrains trade” in some sense).

8
“restrain trade” that is, alter commerce from the course it would otherwise take. Nonetheless, as

Justice Holmes told us, economic progress requires cooperation, and the power to regulate

commerce does not include the power to “explode the economy into individual atoms.”8 From the

very beginning, then, the Supreme Court engrafted upon the statute a “reasonable construction,” thus

avoiding assertions that the Act outlaws ordinary and useful contracts, which at the time found

shelter in liberty of contract.9 In so doing, the Court made it plain that agreements that actually

promote commerce are outside the scope of the Act, even if such contracts “indirectly” restrain

interstate trade or even (indirectly) increase “the cost of conducting an interstate business.”10 Thus,

8
See Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 411 (1903) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (“I
am happy to know that only a minority of my brethren adopt an interpretation of the law that would make
eternal the bellum omnium contra omnes and disintegrate society so far as it could into individual atoms.
If this were [Congress’] intent I should regard calling such a law a regulation of commerce a mere pretense.
It would be an attempt to reconstruct society.”). See also Polk Bros., Inc. v. Forest City Enterprises, 776 F.2d
185, 188 (7th Cir. 1985) (“The war of all against all is not a good model for any economy. Antitrust law is
designed to ensure an appropriate blend of cooperation and competition, not to require all economic actors
to compete full tilt at every moment.”).
9
See United States v. Joint Traffic Ass’n, 171 U.S. 505, 568 (1898) (“The act of Congress must have
a reasonable construction, or else there would scarcely be an agreement or contract among business men that
could not be said to have, directly or remotely, some bearing upon interstate commerce, and possibly to
restrain it.”), quoting United States v. Hopkins, 171 U.S. 578, 600 (1898); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 567-68
(Sherman Act does not outlaw “ordinary contracts and combinations” protected by liberty of contract);
Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U.S. 211 (1899) (liberty of contract does not protect the sort
of direct restraints of interstate trade forbidden by the Sherman Act); id. at 235-38 (finding restraint in
question “direct” because it raised prices above the level “competition” would produce). See also Alan J.
Meese, Liberty and Antitrust In The Formative Era, 79 B.U. L. REV . 1 (1999) (state and federal formative
era decisions construed Sherman Act to avoid interference with liberty of contract); MARTIN J. SKLAR , THE
CORPORATE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM 105-117 (1988) (Congress rejected proposals to
ban all contracts limiting “free competition” because of constitutional concerns).
10
Joint Traffic Ass’n.,171 U.S. at 568 (“the statute applies only to those contracts whose direct and
immediate effect is a restraint upon interstate commerce . . . to treat the act as condemning all agreements
under which, as a result, the cost of conducting an interstate business may be increased, would enlarge the
application of the act far beyond the fair meaning of the language used.”); Hopkins v. United States, 171 U.S.
578, 592-600 (1898) (same); Anderson v. United States, 171 U.S. 604, 615-19 (1898) (contract that affects
interstate trade incidentally or indirectly not a violation of the Act). See also United States v. Trans-Missouri
Freight, 166 U.S. 290 (1897); United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co., 85 F. 271 (1898) (Taft, J.), aff’d

9
the Court said, the Act only banned contracts that restrained trade — and thus increased prices —

directly, that is, without connection to any main, lawful purpose.11 Such contracts were, of course,

beyond the protection of liberty of contract.12

Since 1911, the approach taken in these early cases has found expression in the “Rule

of Reason” announced in Standard Oil Co. v. United States.13 There the Court confirmed that the

Sherman Act, like the common law before it, served to promote the right to contract, not to smash

it.14 To be sure, commercial contracts would limit the freedom of action of the parties to them and

175 U.S. 211 (1899) (Sherman Act does not proscribe partial restraints that are ancillary to a legitimate
undertaking).
11
See Addyston Pipe, 175 U.S. at 235-38 (finding naked horizontal price fixing a “direct” restraint
of trade because it drove prices above a reasonable level); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 566-68; Hopkins, 171
U.S. at 592-600; Anderson, 171 U.S. at 615-19 (agreement not a restraint of trade within the meaning of the
Act where it did not “meddle with prices” and thus “lacked every ingredient of monopoly” but was instead
designed to “regulate the transaction of business in which the parties to the business were engaged.”). See
also National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas, 197 U.S. 115, 128-30 (1905) (liberty of contract does not prevent
states from banning monopolistic combinations).
12
See Meese, Liberty and Antitrust, 79 B.U. L. Rev. at 65-67 (formative era courts defined as “direct”
those restraints that exercised market power without countervailing benefits and thus fell outside the
protection of liberty of contract); BARRY CUSHMAN , RETHINKING THE NEW DEAL COURT , 142-149 (1998)
(explaining that commerce clause jurisprudence of the period equated intrastate activities that affected
interstate commerce “directly” with businesses “affected with a public interest” and thus subject to price
regulation under then-prevailing applications of “substantive due process”). See generally Munn v. Illinois,
94 U.S. 113 (1877).
13
221 U.S. 1 (1911). See also United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U.S. 106 (1911)
(reaffirming and elaborating Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason).
14
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 60 (the Sherman Act “evidenced the intent not to restrain the right
to make and enforce contracts which did not unduly restrain interstate or foreign commerce, but to protect
that commerce from being restrained by methods, whether old or new, which would constitute an
interference, that is, an undue restraint.”); American Tobacco Co., 221 U.S. at 180 (Standard Oil court
exercised “the duty to interpret which inevitably arose from the general character of the term restraint of
trade [which] required that the terms restraint of trade should be given a meaning which would not destroy
the individual right to contract and render difficult and not impossible any movement of trade in the channels
of interstate commerce.”). Scholars who have considered the question uniformly agree that the Standard Oil
Court construed the Sherman Act in light of liberty of contract. See, e.g., RUDOLPH PERITZ, COMPETITION
POLICY IN AMERICA , 56-58 (1996) (“The Standard Oil opinion’s Rule of Reason can be understood as

10
thus in some sense restrain competition and trade.15 Nonetheless, it was the right to contract, and

not regulatory intervention, that would empower firms and individuals to participate in the

marketplace, preserving meaningful competition and thwarting monopoly over the long run.16 As

closing Lochner’s circle of individual liberty[.]”); SKLAR , CORPORATE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN

CAPITALISM , at 146-48; Edward Corwin, The Antitrust Acts And The Constitution, 18 Va. L. Rev. 355, 368-
70 (1932). It should be noted, however, that some of these same scholars have argued that Standard Oil
constituted a departure from decisions such as Joint Traffic and Trans-Missouri Freight. See, e.g, PERITZ,
COMPETITION POLICY, at 50-58; Corwin, Antitrust Acts And The Constitution, 18 Va. L. Rev. at 368-70. See
also David Millon, The Sherman Act And The Balance of Power, 61 S. CAL . L. REV . 1219, 1288 n. 314
(1988) (arguing that Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason was a departure from earlier, more “literal” caselaw);
Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 83-106 (Harlan, J., concurring and dissenting) (arguing strenuously that “Rule of
Reason” announced by Standard Oil was inconsistent with previous case law). I have argued elsewhere that,
in fact, the approach taken by Standard Oil is entirely consistent with prior caselaw, which also construed
the Sherman Act in light of liberty of contract. See Meese, Liberty and Antitrust, 79 B.U. L. Rev. at 43-67
(early decisions construed Sherman Act in light of liberty of contract). See also Cline v. Frink Dairy Co.,
274 U.S. 445, 460-61 (1927) (Taft, C.J.) (Standard Oil simply reaffirmed principles announced in Joint
Traffic and Addyston Pipe); WI LL IA M HOWARD TAFT , THE ANTITRUST ACT AND THE SUPREME COURT , 89-95
(1914) (same); Robert H. Bork, The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept: Price Fixing And Market
Division, 74 YALE L. J. 775, 802-805 (1965) (same); WI LL IA M LETW IN , LAW AND ECONOMIC POLICY IN
AMERICA : THE EVOLUTION OF THE SHERMAN LAW , 265 (1956) (semble).
15
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 63 (all contracts literally “restrain trade” to some extent); see also
Chicago Bd. of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231, 238 (1918) (Brandeis, J.) (“But the legality of an
agreement or regulation cannot be determined by so simple a test, as whether it restrains competition. Every
agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains. To bind, to restrain, is of their very essence.
The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates and perhaps thereby
promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition.”).
16
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 62 (“the omission of any direct prohibition against monopoly in the
concrete . . . indicates a consciousness that the freedom of the individual right to contract when not unduly
or improperly exercised was the most efficient means for the prevention of monopoly.”); American Tobacco,
221 U.S. at 180 (failure to construe Sherman Act in light of liberty of contract would “render difficult if not
impossible any movement of trade in the channels of interstate commerce.”); id. at 181 (“giving the statute
a reasonable constriction, the words ‘restraint of trade’ did not embrace all those normal and usual contracts
essential to individual freedom, and the right to make which was necessary in order that the course of trade
might be free”); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 566-68 (Sherman Act does not ban “ordinary contracts and
combinations”); Whitwell v. Continental Tobacco Co., 125 F. 454, 460-61 (8th Cir. 1903) (Sanborn, J.)
(“There is nothing in the [Sherman Act] which deprived any of the competitors of these rights [of contract].
If there had been, the law itself would have destroyed competition more effectually than any contracts or
combinations of persons or of corporations could possibly have stifled it. The exercise of these undoubted
rights is essential to the very existence of free competition, and so long as their exercise by any person or
corporation in no way deprives competitors of the same rights, or restricts them in the use of these rights, it
is difficult to perceive how their exercise can constitute any restriction upon competition or any restraint

11
a result, the Court said, the Sherman Act did not disturb “normal,” “usual” or “ordinary” contracts

that “furthered” or “developed” trade but instead struck only at those “unusual” contracts that

restrained competition “unduly.”17 This distinction between “usual” and “unusual” contracts, the

Court said, was equivalent to that between “direct” and “indirect” restraints it had announced in prior

decisions.18

Whether a particular restraint on competition was “undue,” the Court said, would

depend upon an analysis of the character of the agreement or the surrounding circumstance of the

upon interstate trade.”). See also National Society Of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U.S. 679,
688 (1978) (“[I]t is that body of law [i.e., contract law] that establishes the enforceability of commercial
agreements and enables competitive markets – indeed a competitive economy – to function effectively.”);
National Cotton Oil, 197 U.S. at 128 (“some combination of capital, skill or acts is necessary to any business
development, and . . . the result must inevitably be a cessation of competition”); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 282
(noting that, at common law, “restrictions in the articles of partnership upon the business activities of the
members . . . were to be encouraged.”) (emphasis added).
17
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 57 (American common law forbade only those restraints that “unduly
diminished competition”); id. at 58 (American common and statutory law forbade only those restraints
“unreasonably restrictive of competition conditions”); id. at 62 (statute’s “purpose was to prevent undue
restraints of every kind or nature”); id. at 75-76 (finding that defendants’ methods of expansion were not
“normal” or “usual” and thus constituted undue restraints of trade); American Tobacco, 221 U.S. at 179 (“the
words ‘restraint of trade’ at common law and in the law of this country at the time of the adoption of the anti-
trust act only embraced acts or contracts or agreements or combination, which operated to the prejudice of
the public interests by unduly restricting competition, or unduly obstructing the course of trade”); id.
(Standard Oil held that “statute did not forbid or restrain the power to make normal and usual contracts to
further trade by resorting to all normal methods, whether by, agreement or otherwise, to accomplish such
purpose.”); Northern Securities, 193 U.S. at 361 (Brewer, J. concurring) (“Congress did not intend to reach
and destroy those minor contracts in partial restraint of trade which the long course of decisions at common
law had affirmed were reasonable and ought to be upheld. . . . the general language of the Act is also limited
by the power which each individual has to manage his own property and determine the place and manner of
its investment. Freedom of action in this respect is among the inalienable rights of every citizen.”). See also
Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 566-68 (Sherman Act banned only “direct restraints” and not all contracts “under
which, as a result, the cost of conducting an interstate commercial business may be increased”); Standard
Oil, 221 U.S. at 66 (“Rule of Reason” and “direct or indirect” test articulated in Joint Traffic “come to one
and the same thing”).
18
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 66 (application of the Rule of Reason produces same results as
distinction between “direct” and “indirect” restraints); American Tobacco Co., 221 U.S. at 178-79 (Standard
Oil announced Rule of Reason “without departing from any previous decision of the court”); see also Cline,
274 U.S. at 460-61 (same); TAFT , THE ANTITRUST ACTS , at 89-95 (same).

12
case.19 Such an analysis did not involve implementation of any abstract, technical conception of

“competition.” Unlike modern economists, who view “competition” as a technical term of art,

functionally linked to the efficient allocation of resources, the Standard Oil Court, like classical

economists, equated competition with rivalry, the struggle between several firms to realize economic

opportunities.20 Defined in this way and thus drained of any economic content, “competition” was

not an unalloyed good, as it is for modern economists. When tempered by an appropriate amount

19
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 58 (Sherman Act struck at “all contracts or acts which were
unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions, either from the nature or character of the contract or act
or where the surrounding circumstances were such as to justify the conclusion that they had not been entered
into or performed with the legitimate purpose of forwarding personal interest and developing trade, but on
the contrary . . . with the intent to do wrong to the general public and to limit the right of individuals.”).
20
See FRANK M. MACHOVEC , PERFECT COMPETITION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMICS ,
96-138 (1995) (examining classical conception of competition); Paul McNulty, Economic Theory And The
Meaning Of Competition, 82 Q. J. ECON . 639, 647 (1968) (arguing that the classical concept of competition
“was a behavioral one, the essence of which was the effort of the individual seller to undersell, or the
individual buyer to outbid, his rivals in the marketplace”); George Stigler, Perfect Competition, Historically
Contemplated, 65 J. POL . ECON . 1-2 (1957) (finding that Adam Smith equated “competition” with “rivalry
in a race – a race to get limited supplies or a race to be rid of excess supplies”). See also HERBERT
HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AM ERICAN LAW 1836-1937, 270 (1991) (“Although classicists were
concerned to preserve ‘competition,’ they did not understand the term as we understand it today.
Competition was not a theory about cost-price relationships, as it came to be in Neoclassical economics . .
. .Rather, competition was a belief about the role of individual self-determination in directing the allocation
of resources, and about the limits of state power to give privileges to one person or class at the expense of
others.”). Two years before passage of the Sherman Act, a leading political economist defined competition
in the following manner:

“[Competition is] the operation of individual self-interest, among the buyers and sellers of any
article in any market. It implies that each man is acting for himself solely, by himself solely,
in exchange, to get the most he can from others, and to give the least he must himself.”

See FRANCIS A. WALKER , POLITICAL EC ON O M Y, 91-92 (3d ed. 1888), quoted in HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE
AND AMERICAN LAW , at 274.

13
of cooperation embodied in an “ordinary” or “normal” restraint, such rivalry could enhance

economic welfare by assuring consumers high quality products at the lowest possible price.21

Instead of banning all restraints on “competition,” then, the Sherman Act required

antitrust courts to employ the sort of “reason” that they had long employed when implementing the

common law of trade restraints.22 The application of such reason would enable judges to enforce the

“public policy embodied in the statute,” by determining whether a challenged restraint limited

marketplace rivalry (“competition”) so much that it produced or threatened to produce monopoly or

21
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 58 (common law did not void those contracts that had a “legitimate
purpose of reasonably forwarding personal interest and developing trade”); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 575 (“it
is plain that commerce can and does take place on a large scale and in numerous forms without
competition”). See also McNulty, Meaning of Competition, 82 Q. J. Econ. at 643-45 (classical economists
argued that “competition” would result in “natural” price, i.e., the lowest price necessary to induce
production of the product in question). Some scholars would take issue with the assertion that Congress
designed the Sherman Act to maximize consumer welfare, if such welfare is equated with total social wealth
and thus involved application of a Kaldor-Hicksian efficiency benchmark. According to these scholars,
classical economists did not understand that the exercise of market power would distort the allocation of
resources and thus reduce total social welfare. See Louis Kaplow, Antitrust, Law and Economics, and the
Courts, Law and Contemporary Problems, Autumn, 1987, at 181, 207-208 & note 140. Thus, it is said,
Congress must have had purely distributional goals in mind when it passed the Sherman Act, with the result
that any arrangement that increases prices, directly or indirectly, offends the Act. See Robert H. Lande, The
Rise and Coming Fall Of Efficiency As The Ruler Of Antitrust, 33 Antitrust Bull. 429 (1988); Kaplow,
Antitrust And The Courts, at 207-208; Robert Lande, Wealth Transfers As The Original And Primary
Concern Of Antitrust: The Efficiency Interpretation Challenged, 34 Hastings L. J. 65 (1982). However, at
least some classical economists apparently understood that the possession and exercise of market power
would distort the allocation of resources and reduce total social welfare. See AD A M SMITH , AN INQUIRY
INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, 682-83 (Modern Library Edition 1994)
(arguing that mercantile monopolies “derange more or less the natural distribution of the stock of the society”
and that “every derangement of the natural distribution of stock is necessarily hurtful to the society in which
it takes place”). See also E.G. West, The Burdens Of Monopoly: Classical Versus Neoclassical, 44 S. Econ.
J. 829 (1979) (arguing that Adam Smith understood allocative inefficiency as one burden of monopoly).
At any rate, the conclusions of this article do not depend upon any equation of “consumer welfare”
with efficiency defined in a Kaldor-Hicksian sense. Even if the Sherman Act forbids all contracts that 1)
exercise market power and 2) result in higher consumer prices, the present structure of Rule of Reason
analysis is overinclusive in the sense that it identifies as “anticompetitive” numerous contracts that do not,
in fact, create or exercise market power. See nn. ___, infra and accompanying text.
22
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 60.

14
its consequences.23 There were, according to the Court, three such consequences: the ability to

restrict output, raise prices, or reduce quality.24 Modern economists, of course, would equate these

consequences with the exercise of market power and the corresponding reduction in social welfare.25

This treatment of the Sherman Act as a form of externality regulation was consistent with the then-

23
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 60 (“the standard of reason which had been applied at the common
law . . . was intended to be the measure used for determining whether in a given case a particular act had or
had not brought about the wrong against which the statute provided.”); id. at 62 (Court should apply rule of
reason “to enforce the prohibitions of the Act and thus the public policy which its restrictions were obviously
enacted to subserve.”); id. at 58 (stating that the common law refused to enforce “all contracts or acts which
were unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions [and thus designed] to bring about the evils, such
as enhancement of prices, which were considered against public policy”); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 282-83
(contract whose “sole object” is to “restrain competition” was unenforceable at common law and thus
unlawful under the Sherman Act).
24
Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 64; id. at 61 (defining “restraint of trade” as “undue restraint of the
course of trade” which bring about monopoly or “which produces the same result as monopoly”); id. at 57
(common law referred to contracts that “were thought to unduly diminish competition and hence to enhance
prices — in other words, to monopolize” as “being in restraint of trade”); id. (prohibition on restraints of
trade were aimed at “the acts of individuals producing or tending to produce the consequences of
monopoly”); id. at 52 (listing “evils” of monopoly as: 1) the power to fix prices; 2) the power to limit output
and 3) the danger of deterioration in the quality of the monopolized product); id. (characterizing “power
arbitrarily to enhance price” as one “evil of monopoly”). See also AD A M SMITH , THE WEALTH OF NATIONS,
at 69 (“The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly under-stocked, by never fully supplying the
effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether
they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.”); THOMAS SOWELL , CLASSICAL ECONOMICS
RECONSIDERED , 20-21 (1974) (classical economists equated “monopoly” with any restriction of supply).
25
See, e.g., HERBERT HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, 11-13 (1999) (describing
deadweight loss caused by monopolist’s exercise of market power); William Landes And Richard Posner,
Market Power In Antitrust Cases, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 937 (1981) (defining market power as ability profitably
to price above marginal cost); Guido Calabresi, Transaction Costs, Resource Allocation, and Liability Rules:
A Comment, 11 J. L. & Econ. 67, 70 (1968) (antitrust regulation can be justified as regulation eliminating
the externality of deadweight welfare losses caused by monopoly restrictions on output); KENNETH ELZINGA
AND WI LL IA M BREIT , THE ANTITRUST PENALTIES , 3 (1976) (same); SMITH , WEALTH OF NATIONS, at 69
(arguing that “[t]he price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. The natural
price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every
occasion indeed, but for any considerable time together. The one is upon every occasion the highest which
can be squeezed out of the buyers, or which, it is supposed, they will consent to give. The other is the lowest
which the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at the same time continue their business.”). See also
Bork, The Rule of Reason, 74 YALE L. J. at 802-805, 831-32 (Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason designed to
further “the creation of wealth, or, to say the same thing, the maximization of the satisfaction of consumer
wants”).

15
dominant approach to political economy, an approach that the Court had read into the due process

clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.26

This “Rule of Reason” did not empower courts to validate harmful agreements that

judges might nevertheless deem “reasonable.”27 Nor did it empower judges to void “legitimate” or

“normal” contracts that incidentally limited competition and might indirectly raise prices.28 Instead,

the rule required courts to ban all contracts that limited competition in a manner that would produce

the consequences of monopoly and thus harm consumers and society.29 Absent government

26
See HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AMERICAN LAW , at 200-201 (arguing that the Supreme Court
only sustained abridgements of contractual liberty that were designed to correct market failure); Meese,
Liberty And Antitrust In The Formative Era, 79 B.U. L. Rev. at 15-34 (recounting classical economic
paradigm and its embrace by courts practicing economic due process); id. at 88-91 (suggesting that formative
era jurisprudence could be explained by concern for welfare losses caused by cartel output reductions);
PERITZ, COMPETITION POLICY IN AMERICA , at 50-52 (arguing that Standard Oil reflected concern for liberty
of contract recognized in Lochner); SKLAR , CORPORATE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM , at
108-117 (arguing that Congress narrowed initial drafts of the Sherman Act to accomodate concerns that
statute might infringe liberty of contract). See also National Cotton Oil, 197 U.S. at 129 (“It is the power
to control prices which makes the inducement of combinations and their profits. It is such power that makes
it the concern of the law to prohibit or limit them.”).
27
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 65 (Rule of Reason does not empower courts to exempt agreements
that unduly restrict competition from the statute); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 575-77 (rejecting defendants’
invitation to consider policy arguments in favor of railroad cartel).
28
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 66 (“To treat as condemned by the act all agreements under which,
as a result, the cost of conducting an interstate commercial business may be increased would enlarge the
application of the act far beyond the fair meaning of the language used. There must be some direct and
immediate effect upon interstate commerce in order to come within the act.”), quoting Hopkins, 171 U.S. at
592; Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 54 (listing “undue enhancement of price” as one evil of monopoly) (emphasis
added); American Tobacco, 221 U.S. at 179 (Act does not forbid “the power to make normal and usual
contracts to further trade by resorting to all normal methods whether by agreement or otherwise, to
accomplish such purpose.”); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 566-68 (same); see also Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246
U.S. at 238 (mere fact that a contract restrains price competition does not condemn it under Rule of Reason).
29
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 52-62. See also Bork, The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept,
74 YALE L.J. at 802-804 (Standard Oil created “a rule of reason keyed to the avoidance of the consequences
of monopoly and had placed upon the courts the duty of performing economic analysis to determine in which
acts and agreement the evils of monopoly were present.”).

16
imposition of monopoly, then, the Sherman Act, if properly enforced, would ensure the appropriate

amount of competition and protect society from arrangements that produced or threatened to produce

market power.30

B. Applying Principles —The Role of Evolving Economic Theory:

Although initially controversial,31 modern courts and commentators agree that

Standard Oil should be the starting point for any antitrust analysis.32 Still, the embrace of this

principle begs an important question: how should courts should go about distinguishing “ordinary,”

“normal,” or usual restrictions, which “further” and “develop” trade from those that “unreasonably

restrict competitive conditions” and thus produce the consequences of monopoly?33 Standard Oil’s

invocation of the common law in support of its Rule of Reason suggests one source of wisdom,

30
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 62 (“The operation of the centrifugal and centripetal forces resulting
from the right to freely contract was the means by which monopoly would be inevitably prevented if no
extraneous or sovereign power imposed it and no right to make unlawful contracts having a monopolistic
tendency were permitted. In other words that freedom to contract was the essence of freedom from undue
restraint on the right to contract.”); Whitewell, 125 F. at 400-401 (protection of right to contract was
“essential to the very existence of free competition.”).
31
See LETW IN , LAW AND ECONOMIC POLICY IN AMERICA , at 265-70 (describing political and
legislative reaction to Standard Oil); Albert H. Walker, The Unreasonable Obiter Dicta Of Chief Justice
White In The Standard Oil Case (1911). As noted earlier, some contemporary and modern commentators
have argued that Standard Oil’s invocation of the Rule of Reason was a wholesale repudiation of prior
decisions under the Act. See n. ____, supra. I have shown elsewhere that this position rests on a misreading
of pre-1911 decisions. See Meese, Liberty and Antitrust, 79 B. U. L. REV . at 43-67 (arguing that, like
Standard Oil, early state and federal decisions construed antitrust statutes narrowly, to avoid claims that such
statutes offended liberty of contract); id. at 59-67, 75-80 (early caselaw voided only those contracts that
exercised or threatened to create market power). See also TAFT , THE ANTITRUST ACTS AND THE SU P RE M E
COURT , at 89-95 (arguing that Standard Oil did not depart from prior caselaw).
32
Business Electronics Corp. v. Sharp Electronics, 485 U.S. 723 (1988); Arizona v. Maricopa County
Medical Society, 457 U.S. 332, 343 (1982); National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 687-92;
Continental T.V. v. GTE Sylvania, 433 U.S. 36, 49 (1979); Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway Hale Stores, 359 U.S.
207 (1959); SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , LAW OF ANTITRUST 192-94 (praising Standard Oil as “an antitrust
classic”); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST ¶¶ 1500-1501.
33
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 58 (distinguishing between these two sorts of contracts).

17
namely the vast body of precedents governing trade restraints that was in place when Congress

passed the Sherman Act.34 Congress, after all, anticipated that the courts would draw upon common

law precedents and methodology when formulating antitrust doctrine.35 Perhaps courts should ban

those restraints that were void at common law, while at the same time validating those that common

law courts would have enforced.36

From the very beginning, however, courts have rejected invitations to engraft the

stock of common law precedents onto the Sherman Act.37 As Standard Oil itself noted, the universe

of trade restraints is in constant flux: human ingenuity produces restraints that the common law did

not address.38 More fundamentally, the effects of well-known restraints are themselves not static:

34
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 60 (Congress intended the courts to apply “the standard of reason
which had been applied at the common law and in this country in dealing with the subjects of the character
embraced by the statute.”). See also nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
35
See, e.g., State Oil v. Khan, 522 U.S. at 20-21 (“Congress ‘expected the courts to give shape to the
statute’s broad mandate by drawing on common-law tradition.’”), quoting National Society Of Professional
Engineers, 435 U.S. at 688. See also SKLAR , CORPORATE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM , at
112-17 (detailing Congressional assumptions that Courts would treat the Sherman Act as a license to
articulate a common law of trade restraints).
36
Cf. Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 211 (suggesting that Sherman Act banned all contracts that were
unenforceable at common law and any others that “new times and economic conditions would make
unreasonable”).
37
See Trans-Missouri Freight, 166 U.S. at 327-28 (rejecting argument that the term “restraint of
trade” is “to be given the same meaning that [it] received at common law”). Moreover, while then–Judge
Taft purported to rely upon the common law to justify his decision in Addyston Pipe, the approach he
announced in fact departed from the common law’s willingness to enforce “reasonable” horizontal price
fixing agreements. See HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AMERICAN LAW , at 286-87. See also nn. ___, infra
and accompanying text (describing Supreme Court’s repudiation of common law decisions enforcing non-
coercive price-fixing agreements).
38
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 59-60 (Congress drafted the Sherman Act to address “the many new
forms of contracts and combinations which were being evolved from existing economic conditions”);
American Tobacco, 221 U.S. at 180-81 (Rule of Reason empowers courts to condemn arrangements that
frustrate the policy of the statute even if they were unknown to the common law).

18
economic conditions change, and such changes may themselves alter the effects of particular

restraints. At the same time, human understanding evolves — or at least changes — over time;

restraints that once appeared beneficial or benign to the most learned economists may now seem

harmful.39

For these reasons, even the common law was not static, but instead treated identical

restraints quite differently in different eras.40 At one time, for instance, covenants ancillary to the

sale of a business were unlawful “per se.”41 Over time, however, conditions and economic

understanding changed, and courts came to believe that such agreements were both more beneficial

and less harmful than once imagined.42 As a result, courts refused to enforce only “general”

restraints of trade that barred the seller from pursuing his trade in the entire jurisdiction, enforcing

those partial restraints that were reasonable.43

39
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 57-58 (noting that, during the late 19th Century, American courts and
legislatures adjusted common law restrictions in response to changed understandings of the economic effects
of various agreements); id. at 55-56 (“development of more accurate economic conceptions and the changed
conditions of society” caused repeal of overbroad English statutes and adjustment in English common law).
40
See, e.g., Gibbs v. Consolidated Gas Co., 130 U.S. 396, 409 (1889) (stating that the original rules
governing restraints of trade were “made under a condition of things and a state of society, different from
those which now prevail, [with the result that] the rule laid down is not regarded as inflexible, and has been
considerably modified.”); Skrainka v. Scharringhausen, 8 Mo. App. 522, 525 (1880) (“It is not that contracts
in restraint of trade are any more legal or enforceable now than they were at any former period, but that
courts look differently at the question as to what is a restraint of trade.”); Diamond Match Co. v. Roeber, 13
N.E. 419, 421-22 (N.Y. 1887); Kellog v. Larkin, 3 Pin. 123, 139-41 (Wis. 1851). See also Standard Oil, 221
U.S. at 51-58 (describing common law’s evolving treatment of trade restraints); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 280-
82 (same).
41
See Year Book, 2 Hen. V., Folio 5, pl. 26.
42
See Mitchell; Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 280-81 (describing evolving appreciation of benefits of
various ancillary restraints); Diamond Match Co. v. Roeber, 13 N.E. 419, 420-23 (N.Y. 1887).
43
See Mitchel v. Reynolds, 1 P. WM S . 181, 24 ENG . REP . 347 (1711). See also, e.g., Union
Strawboard Co. v. Bonfield, 61 N.E. 1038 (Ill. 1901) (invalidating general restraint without regard to
reasonableness); Alger v. Thacher, 36 Mass. (19 Pick.) 51 (1837) (same).

19
 Antitrust courts have always taken a similar approach, eschewing any reliance upon

a static common law and instead embracing economic theory to assist them in distinguishing

“undue” restraints from those that are “ordinary” or “normal.”44 Such an approach follows naturally

from Standard Oil’s requirement that judges employ “reason” to determine whether a restraint

hinders competitive rivalry between the parties to it in a manner that produces the economic

consequences banned by the statute.45 In so doing, courts have felt free to rely upon economic

theories quite different from those extant in 1890, thus “updating” the Sherman Act to keep pace

with changing perceptions about the “economic consequence” of particular agreements.46 While the

44
See Khan, 522 U.S. at 15-22 (relying upon changed economic perceptions to overrule per se ban
on maximum resale price maintenance); Business Electronics, 485 U.S. at 732 (“The Sherman Act adopted
the term ‘restraint of trade’ along with its dynamic potential. It invokes the common law itself, and not
merely the static content that the common law assigned that term in 1890.”); Klor’s, Inc. 359 U.S. at 211
(Sherman Act empowered courts to ban contracts which new times and economic conditions would make
unreasonable”); Dr. Miles Med. Co. v. John D. Park & Sons, 220 U.S. 373, 406 (“with respect to contracts
in restraint of trade, the earlier doctrine of the common law has been substantially modified in adaptation to
modern conditions.”); Trans-Missouri Freight, 166 U.S. at 327-29. See also HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND
AMERICAN LAW , at 268 (“One of the great myths about American antitrust policy is that courts began to
adopt an ‘economic approach’ to antitrust problems only in the 1970s. At most, this “revolution” in antitrust
policy represented a change in economic models. Antitrust policy has been forged by economic ideology
since its inception.”); Michael S. Jacobs, An Essay on the Normative Foundations of Antitrust Economics,
74 N.C. L. Rev. 219, 226 (1995) (“In almost every era of antitrust history, policymakers have employed
economic models to explain or modify the state of the law and the rationale for its enforcement.”).
45
Bork, The Rule of Reason, 74 YALE L. J. at 805 (“It should be stressed that White’s test was
phrased wholly in economic terms, giving no evidence of concern for possibly competing values. A corollary
of this value choice is that the law should develop according to the progress of economic thought. The law
is, therefore, neither made inflexible by controlling precedent nor required to change only through abrupt
shifts of basic doctrine. Thus a court could alter the law without repudiating the theory underlying prior
decisions by explaining that those decisions had misconceived the economic effect of particular agreements
or practices. This characteristic is, of course, inherent in Peckham’s and Taft’s statements of the rule of
reason, as it is in any law governed by economic analysis.”).
46
See Business Electronics, 485 U.S. at 731 (“The term ‘restraint of trade’ in the statute, like the term
of common law, refers not to a particular list of agreements, but to a particular economic consequence, which
was to be produced by quite different sorts of agreements in varying times and circumstances.”); see also
Khan, 522 U.S. at 15-22 (relying upon revised economic understanding to repudiate prior doctrine);
Continental T.V., 433 U.S. at 52-57 (same); Klor’s Inc, 359 U.S. at 211 (Sherman Act empowered courts to

20
principle animating the Rule of Reason remains constant, applications change, as courts “translate”

the principle in light of new information.47

II IMPLEMENTING STANDARD OIL ’S RULE OF REASON

A. A Two Step Inquiry:

One could read Standard Oil and its Rule of Reason to require a case-by-case

assessment of the reasonableness of each challenged restraint.48 Indeed, some early caselaw seemed

to indicate as much.49 Yet, the decision itself suggested a contrary approach, stating that courts

ban contracts made unreasonable by “new times and economic conditions”).

47
See Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity In Translation, 71 TEX . L. REV . 1165, 1247-51 (1993) (describing
such an approach to interpretation and application of the Sherman Act); see also Alan J. Meese, Tying Meets
The New Institutional Economics 146 U. PENN . L. REV . 1, 91-93 (1997) (arguing that the Supreme Court
should “translate” tying doctrine in light of recent changes in economic theory).
The evolving judicial treatment of horizontal price-fixing provides a quintessential example of this
approach. When Congress passed the Sherman Act, common law courts generally enforced such agreements,
at least those that set a “reasonable” price. See HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AMERICAN LAW , at 288-93.
Such an approach reflected the “political economy” of the day, which assumed that markets were invariably
populated by numerous sellers and characterized by low barriers to entry. In such a world, horizontal price
fixing could only produce prices above the “natural” level if cartelists took steps to thwart entry by others.
See Meese, Liberty and Antitrust, 79 B.U. L. Rev. at 17-18. Indeed, some early decisions under the Sherman
Act refused to void cartels that did not seek to limit the output of strangers to the agreement. See United
States v. Nelson, 52 F. 646 (C.C. Minn. 1892). Nonetheless, the Supreme Court rejected this approach to
price fixing, voiding such agreements regardless whether defendants interfered with the actions of others.
See Dr. Miles, 220 U.S. at 404-409; Addyston Pipe, 175 U.S. at 238-45.
48
Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 60 (statute “intended that the standard of reason which had been applied
at the common law and in this country in dealing with the subjects of the character embraced by the statute
was intended to be the measure used for the purpose of determining whether, in a given case, a particular act
had or had not brought about the wrong against which the statute provided.”) (emphasis added). Indeed, the
author of Standard Oil, Chief Justice White, argued as much (in dissent) fifteen years earlier. See Trans-
Missouri Freight Ass’n., 166 U.S. at 343-74 (White, J. dissenting) (arguing that courts should ban anly those
price fixing agreements that set unreasonable prices).
49
See, e.g., Appalachian Coals v. United States, 288 U.S. 344 (1933); Chicago Board of Trade v.
United States, 246 U.S. 231 (1918). Moreover, while scholars often cite Judge Taft’s and Justice Peckham’s
Addyston Pipe decisions as examples of “per se rules” against unadorned horizontal price fixing, both
decisions in fact ultimately rested upon a determination that the cartel under attack had charged
“unreasonable” prices. See Addyston Pipe, 175 U.S. at 235-38 (rejecting assertion that cartel merely set
reasonable prices); id. at 238 (“The facts thus set forth show conclusively that the effect of the combination

21
should determine the reasonableness vel non of a restraint by examining the “character and nature”

of an agreement or the “surrounding circumstances.”50 Subsequent courts ultimately came around

to this position, declaring certain categories of restraints unreasonable “per se,” and thus subject to

summary condemnation.51

Per se rules are no exception to the approach articulated in Standard Oil. To the

contrary, such rules simply implement the overarching Rule of Reason, just as a requirement that

motorists “stop, listen and look” before crossing any railroad tracks once implemented the more

general requirement that tort victims act reasonably.52 A conclusion that a particular class of restraint

is unlawful “per se” rests upon a determination that a thoroughgoing examination of the

“reasonableness” of such restraints will always or almost always result in a conclusion that they

exercise or create market power and thus restrain “competition” (rivalry) “unduly.”53 In this way,

was to enlarge prices beyond a sum which was reasonable.”); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 291-93 (finding that
defendants’ cartel had produced unreasonable prices). See also Meese, Liberty And Antitrust, 79 B.U. L.
Rev. at 59-67 (Addyston Pipe rested on finding that cartel prices were above the reasonable level).
50
Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 58; American Tobacco, 221 U.S. at 179. See also Bork, The Rule of
Reason and the Per Se Concept, 74 YALE L. J. at 804 (Standard Oil opinion recognized that some
arrangements could be unlawful per se).
51
See FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493 U.S. 411 (1990); Arizona v. Maricopa County
Med. Soc’y, 457 U.S. 332 (1982); Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 5 (1958). See also
Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway Hale Stores, 359 U.S. 207, 211 (1959) (relying on Standard Oil’s reference to
“nature and character” of certain agreements for proposition that some agreements are unreasonable per se).
52
Baltimore & Ohio R.R. v. Goodman, 275 U.S. 66 (1927).
53
State Oil v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 10 (1997) (“Per se treatment is appropriate ‘once experience with
a particular kind of restraint enables the Court to predict with confidence that the Rule of Reason will
condemn it.’"), quoting Maricopa County, 457 U.S. at 344; accord Superior Court Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493
U.S. at 433, n. 15. See also Northern Pac. R. R., 356 U.S. at 5; Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 58 (public policy
condemned “all contracts or acts which were unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions, either from
the nature or character of the contract or act, or where the surrounding circumstances were such as to justify
the conclusion that they had not been entered into or performed with the legitimate purpose of reasonably
forwarding personal interest, and developing, trade.”) (emphasis added).

22
per se rules replicate the result that full blown analysis would produce while at the same time

avoiding the administrative costs of such an inquiry.54

As applied in the courts, then, Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason manifests itself in a two

step analysis. The first step -- per se analysis -- requires characterization and then classification of

a restraint. Here courts inquire into the nature of the agreement and decide whether it is unlawful

per se or instead subject to further scrutiny. If the restraint survives this step, that is, if it is not

unreasonable per se, courts proceed to the second step, namely, (more fact-intensive) analysis of the

actual effects of the restraint. While courts refer to this second step as a “Rule of Reason” analysis,

both steps of the process attempt to answer the question put by Standard Oil, viz., is a restraint

“unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions.”55

Because both steps involve the same ultimate inquiry, the methodology employed in

the first step should help shape the approach taken in the second. After all, the creation of per se

rules is as much a process of exclusion as of inclusion. Thus, the standards employed at the first step

do more than define the class of restraints subject to immediate condemnation; they also implicitly

determine the nature of those restraints that are “left over” and thus subject to more thorough

scrutiny under the second step’s Rule of Reason. Moreover, for three decades per se rules dominated

54
See Khan, 522 U.S. at 10; Superior Court Trial Lawyers, 493 U.S. at 434-35; Maricopa County
Medical Society, 457 U.S. at 344.
55
See National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 490, quoting Standard Oil, 221 U.S.
at 58; Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma v. NCAA, 468 U.S. 85, 104 (1984) (“whether the
ultimate finding is the product of a presumption [implemented via the per se rule] or actual market analysis,
the essential inquiry remains the same – whether or not the challenged restraint enhances competition.”);
Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238 (“The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as
merely regulates and perhaps thereby promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even
destroy competition.”). Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 57 (American common and statutory law banned
arrangements that “were thought to unduly diminish competition”). See also Superior Court Trial Lawyers
Ass’n, 493 U.S. at 433-34.

23
antitrust doctrine, as courts continually expanded the list of agreement subject to automatic

condemnation. Only recently have courts begun to contract the scope of per se rules, and they have

done so in a manner that has important implications for the Rule of Reason in general. Thus, any

attempt to comprehend and critique modern Rule of Reason analysis must therefore begin with an

understanding of the process that leads to Rule of Reason treatment in the first place.

B. The First Step — Per Se Analysis:

The current caselaw, which I do not question, holds that a particular class of restraints

is unreasonable “per se” if the restraints are “always or almost always anticompetitive” and always

or almost always “lack redeeming virtues” that would, if present, “outweigh” or “justify” any

anticompetitive effect.56 Plaintiffs can readily satisfy the first prong of this test, given the manner

in which the Court defines “anticompetitive” when conducting per se analysis.57 Like Standard Oil,

the Court has abjured any technical definition of “competition” and instead equated the term with

“rivalry” for the purpose of per se analysis, with the result that any coordination of previously

56
See State Oil v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 10 (1997) (“Some types of restraints, however, have such
predictable and pernicious anticompetitive effect, and such limited potential for procompetitive benefit, that
they are deemed unlawful per se.”) (emphasis added); Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting
Systems, 441 U.S. 1, 7-8, 19-20 (1979) (same); Catalano v. Target Stores, 446 U.S. 643, 646, 649-50 (1980)
(same); Continental T.V. v. G.T.E. Sylvania, 433 U.S. 36, 49-50 (1977); United States v. Topco Associates,
405 U.S. 596, 607 (1972) (same); Northern Pacific Railway, 356 U.S. at 5 (same). See also Northwest
Wholesale Stationers v. Pacific Stationery & Printing Co., 472 U.S. 284, 290 (1985) (stating that certain
group boycotts are per se unlawful because they “are so likely to restrict competition without any offsetting
efficiency gains that they should be condemned as per se violations”).
It should be noted that the Court has used the term “anticompetitive” in a different sense on occasion
to refer to an arrangement’s overall effect on economic welfare. See, e.g., NCAA, 468 U.S. at 103-104 (“Per
se rules are invoked when surrounding circumstances make the likelihood of anticompetitive conduct so great
as to render unjustified further examination of the challenged conduct.”) (emphasis added). Such usage is
comparatively rare, however.
57
See Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238 (noting that all contracts limit individuals’ freedom of
action and thus restrain competition in some sense).

24
independent activity is “anticompetitive.”58 This definition of “anticompetitive” sweeps quite

broadly, applying as it does to any number of garden variety arrangements. The formation of a

partnership or a corporation, for instance, necessarily eliminates actual or potential rivalry between

the parties to the new venture.59 The same is true of a merger, joint venture, or covenant ancillary

to the sale of a business.60 If competition is equated with “rivalry,” all of these restraints reduce

“competition” when compared to the status quo ante and thus satisfy the first part of the two part test

for per se illegality.

Of course, the economy would grind to a halt if the Sherman Act banned all

agreements that are “anticompetitive” in this broad sense. Recognizing this, Standard Oil held that

the Act forbids only “undue” restrictions of competition.61 Thus, an initial conclusion that a restraint

is “anticompetitive” is only the beginning of per se analysis. Courts recognize that many restraints

58
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 98-100 (agreement on price and output required justification to avoid per
se condemnation); Maricopa County Med. Soc’y, 457 U.S. at 342-54 (maximum price fixing arrangement
“anticompetitive” and unlawful absent valid competitive justification); Catalano, 446 U.S. at 649-50
(agreement fixing credit terms between competitors unlawful per se given absence of any recognized
redeeming virtue); National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 692-96 (ban on competitive
bidding required competitive justification); Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 51-59 (treating reduction of intrabrand
rivalry as sufficient to require inquiry into restraint’s redeeming virtues); White Motor Co. v. United States,
372 U.S. 253, 261-64 (1963) (possibility that territorial restraint had redeeming virtues obviated application
of per se rule).
59
See Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U.S. at 357 (partnership involves price fixing but is
subject to Rule of Reason because of economic integration that produces efficiencies); Broadcast Music,
Inc. 441 U.S. at 9 (stating that the existence of a partnership is not per se unlawful because of its redeeming
virtues); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 280 (creation of partnership and associated restraints analyzed under the
Rule of Reason even though the arrangement “might reduce competition”).
60
See Broadcast Music, Inc., 441 U.S. at 23; National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S.
at 688-89 (covenants not to compete analyzed under the Rule of Reason even though they eliminate
“potential competition”).
61
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text; Polk Bros., 776 F.2d at 188 (“Antitrust law is designed
to assure an appropriate blend of cooperation and competition”).

25
that eliminate or temper competition produce “procompetitive” efficiencies or “redeeming virtues”

that can “outweigh” or “justify” any “anticompetitive” limitation on rivalry.62 In other words, courts

recognize that such restraints might be “normal” or “ordinary” with the result that a fact-intensive

Rule of Reason analysis will not always or almost always condemn them.63 Indeed, given the breadth

with which the Court defines “anticompetitive,” it is the second portion of this test that saves most

restrictions on rivalry from automatic condemnation and thus determines whether a particular type

of restraint is unreasonable per se.64

62
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 102 (finding that various horizontal restrictions on rivalry between member
schools could help create a distinctive product and thus be “procompetitive”); Maricopa Medical Society,
457 U.S. at 357 (noting that doctors that formed a clinic “would have the type of partnership in which a
price-fixing agreement among the doctors would be perfectly proper.”); National Society of Professional
Engineers, 435 U.S. at 688-89 (stating that courts have historically sustained covenants ancillary to the sale
of a business as reasonable because “[t]he long-run benefit of enhancing the marketability of the business
itself — and thereby providing incentives to develop such an enterprise — outweighed the temporary and
limited loss of competition.”); Broadcast Music Inc., 441 U.S. at 9 (“When two partners set the price of their
goods or services they are literally ‘price fixing,’ but they are not in per se violation of the Sherman Act.”);
id. at 23 (“Not all arrangements that have an impact on price are per se violations of the Sherman Act or even
unreasonable restraints. Mergers among competitors eliminate competition, including price competition, but
they are not illegal per se, and many of them withstand attack under any existing antitrust standard.”);
Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 51-57 (refusing to apply per se rule to restraints that limited intrabrand rivalry because
such restrictions could enhance interbrand rivalry); Appalachian Coals, Inc. v. United States, 288 U.S. 344,
360-61 (1933) (“The mere fact that the parties to an agreement eliminate competition between themselves
is not enough to condemn it . . . . The familiar illustrations of partnerships, and enterprises fairly integrated
in the interest of the promotion of commerce, at once occur.”); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 280 (“When two men
became partners in a business, although their union might reduce competition, this effect was only an
incident to the main purpose of a union of their capital, enterprise, and energy to carry on a successful
business, and one useful to the community. Restrictions in the articles of partnership upon the business
activity of the members, with a view toward securing their entire effort in the common enterprise, were, of
course, only ancillary to the main end of the union, and were to be encouraged.”).
63
See Broadcast Music, Inc., 441 U.S. at 23-24. Cf. Khan, 522 U.S. at 10 (per se condemnation only
appropriate when Rule of Reason analysis will always or almost always condemn a contract).
64
See 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , ¶ 1509, p. 414 (“classifying conduct as falling within the per se
category depends on the presence or absence of redeeming virtues.”).

26
 One may wonder at this point why any type of contract is ever unreasonable per se.

After all, a determination whether a restriction is “undue” or not would seem to require a case-by-

case exercise of judgment. Moreover, one can always attribute some “benefit” or “redeeming virtue”

to a particular contract, no matter how harmful it might seem. Indeed, much regulation consists of

coercive restrictions that mandate prices or output different from what a “free” market would

produce.65 Nonetheless, the Sherman Act does not recognize the same breadth of justifications for

contractual restrictions on trade that the Constitution tolerates where legislative interference is

concerned.66 More precisely, proponents of a private restraint that restricts competition cannot avoid

per se treatment by arguing that the reduction in competition produces non-economic benefits that

somehow outweigh the agreement’s economic effects.67 While states can decide that enforcing a

raisin cartel is wise public policy, grape growers cannot “justify” a cartel by arguing that society is

better off if the cartelists receive a supra-competitive return on their investment.68 Thus, a purported

65
See West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937) (sustaining statute setting minimum wage
against due process challenge); Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934) (sustaining state statute setting
minimum resale price of milk); New State Ice Company v. Liebman, 285 U.S. 262, 280-311 (1935)
(Brandeis, J. dissenting) (recounting various purported benefits of entry restrictions). Cf. Dr. Miles Med.
Co. v. John D. Park & Sons, 220 U.S. 373 (1911) (minimum resale price maintenance an unreasonable
restraint of trade).
66
Cf. Williamson v. Lee Optical, 348 U.S. 483, 491 (1955) (sustaining Oklahoma statute prohibiting
opticians from fitting or duplicating lenses without a prescription from an ophthalmologist).
67
See Superior Court Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493 U.S. at 424; National Society of Professional
Engineers, 435 U.S. at 692 (purpose of analysis under Section 1 of the Sherman Act is “not to decide whether
a policy favoring competition is in the public interest or in the interest of the members of an industry.”); id
at 689-91, nn. 16-17. Indeed, even where Congress has itself exempted a particular industry or activity from
the antitrust laws, courts read such “exceptions . . . narrowly, with beady eyes and green eye shades.”
Chicago Professional Sports Ltd. Partnership. v. N.B.A., 961 F.2d 667, 672 (7th Cir. 1992); Group Life &
Health Ins. Co., v. Royal Drug Co., 440 U.S. 205, 231 (1979).
68
Compare Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943) (state-created raisin cartel that restrained interstate
commerce is beyond the scope of the Sherman Act) with National Society of Professional Engineers, 435
U.S. at 689-90 (private parties cannot justify restraints on the ground that competition is itself unreasonable

27
virtue is only “redeeming” if it serves a “legitimate” purpose, that is, does not depend on the exercise

of market power.69 Put another way, a restraint is “procompetitive” if it affects productive activity

in a manner that enhances the welfare of consumers.70 Defendants cannot avoid per se condemnation

of an “anticompetitive” restraint by arguing that rivalry is itself unreasonable.71

Ultimately, then, any determination of whether a restraint falls into the per se category

or merits further analysis under the Rule of Reason requires an assessment of any justifications

proffered by the proponents of a restraint. That is to say, once a plaintiff has shown that a restraint

limits “competition,” i.e., rivalry between the parties, the tribunal must determine whether any

justification proffered by the defendants is “cognizable,” that is, constitutes the sort of “virtue” that

in a particular industry). See also Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 282-83.

69
See National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 690-91, nn. 16-17 (concluding that
Standard Oil limits courts to consideration of competitive impact of restraints); see also NCAA, 468 U.S. at
104 (“Under the Sherman Act the criterion to be used in judging the validity of a restraint on trade is its
impact on competition.”); American Tobacco, 221 U.S. at 179 (Sherman Act does not “restrain the power
to make normal and usual contracts to further trade”); Joint Traffic, 171 U.S. at 568 (Act does not reach an
agreement “for the purpose of promoting the legitimate business of an individual or corporation.”); Bork,
The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept, 74 YALE L. J. at 805 (“It should be emphasized that [Standard
Oil’s Rule of Reason] was phrased wholly in economic terms, giving no evidence of concern for competing
values.”). See also RICHARD A. POSNER , ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW 12-17 (1998) (explaining distinction
between total social wealth and total social utility).
70
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (Standard Oil rests on desire to thwart “consequences
of monopoly” that harm consumers). See also, e.g., Khan, 522 U.S. at 14-16 (treating as “procompetitive”
propensity of contract to result in lower consumer prices); FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S.
447, 460 (1986) (treating“the creation of efficiencies in the operation of a market or the provision of goods
and services” as a “procompetitive virtue”); NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113-14 (equating “procompetitive
efficiencies” with reduction in consumer prices).
71
See National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 689-90. See also Addyston Pipe, 85
F. at 282-83 (dicta); United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 220-22 (1940); Joint Traffic,
171 U.S. at 575-77; Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 65 (under the Rule of Reason, restraints of trade can “not be
taken out of that category [of undue restraints] by indulging in general reasoning as to the expediency or non-
expediency of having made the contracts, or the wisdom or want of wisdom of the statute which prohibited
their being made.”). Cf. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. at 170-72 (describing state and federal regulation
designed to combat evils of destructive competition).

28
the Sherman Act recognizes as “redeeming” or “legitimate.” Such an analysis does not entail any

assessment of the factual basis of the purported justification. Instead, the step consists of a sort of

relevance inquiry, that is, a determination whether, if proved, the justification offered by the

defendants would tend to enhance the welfare of consumers, thus rebutting any presumption that the

restriction on competition is “undue.”72 The body of law distinguishing restraints that are

unreasonable per se from those that are not consists in large part of a series of conclusions about

whether various proffered justification are “cognizable” in this sense, determinations that depend in

part on economic theory’s best evaluation of the causes and consequences of such restraints.73

Absent such a justification, it seems safe to assume that the defendants—who have spent resources

negotiating and enforcing an agreement that eliminates rivalry without producing any cognizable

benefits—believe they have or will soon have the market power necessary to injure consumers, i.e.,

to produce monopoly or its consequences.74 Thus, such restraints are always or almost always

72
See Thomas G. Krattenmaker, Per Se Violations in Antitrust Law: Confusing Offenses With
Defenses, 77 Geo. L. J. 165, 172-73 (1988); National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 386
(describing district court’s refusal to make findings regarding whether competition unregulated by the
restraint would have resulted in inferior engineering services); id. at 693-96 (affirming district court’s
decision in this regard); Topco, 405 U.S. at 705 (noting that district court found defendants’ market position
as well as the benefits of the restraint “relevant” to its analysis); id. at 606-12 (reversing district court’s
decision to consider evidence that challenged restraint enhanced inter-brand competition).
73
See Krattenmaker, Per Se Violations In Antitrust Law, 77 GEO . L. J. at 172-73; HO V EN K AM P ,
FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 254 (“the label ‘illegal per se’ entails that certain justifications or defenses
will not be permitted”). See also nn. ___, infra and accompanying text (showing that changes in economic
theory have resulted in changed judicial conclusions about whether certain justifications were cognizable).
74
See Superior Court Trial Lawyers, 493 U.S. at 435, n. 18 (“‘Very few firms that lack power to
affect market prices will be sufficiently foolish to enter into conspiracies to fix prices. Thus, the fact of
agreement defines the market.’”) (quoting ROBERT BORK , THE ANTITRUST PARADOX , 269 (1978)); Joint
Traffic, 171 U.S. at 569 (contending that price fixing agreement must “maintain [ ] rates above what
competition might produce” because “if it did not do that, its existence would be rescinded or abandoned”);
Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas, 500 U.S. 322, 339 (1991) (Scalia, J. dissenting) (existence of naked horizontal
price fixing agreement itself defines contours of the relevant market and suggests that the defendants possess
market power); Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 282-83 (“where the sole object of both parties in making the contract

29
“undue,” with the result that per se condemnation is appropriate.75 If, however, a defendant can

proffer such a justification, the per se rule does not apply, and courts examine the restraint under the

Rule of Reason.

C. The Second Step — The Rule of Reason:

Under current law at least, defendants are able to proffer cognizable benefits for most

restraints.76 Such proffers obviate application of the per se rule and mandate a full Rule of Reason

analysis. While the Supreme Court has declined to specify the precise method of such an analysis,

it has provided some general guidance, guidance supplemented by the Court’s pronouncement in the

per se context. According to the Court, tribunals conducting a Rule of Reason analysis must

“weigh” all of the relevant facts and circumstances and thereby determine whether, in the Court’s

words, the restraint in question “destroys competition,” and thus works consumer harm or instead

merely “regulates,” “promotes,” or “furthers” competition, to the benefit of consumers.77 Such

as expressed therein is merely to restrain competition, and enhance and maintain prices, it would seem that
there was nothing to justify or excuse it, then it would necessarily have a tendency toward monopoly, and
therefore would be void.”); HOVENKAMP , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 256 (“a naked agreement is
rational only on the premise that the participants have market power.”); 7 AREEDA ANTITRUST , ¶ 1506 (“The
defendants are in the best position to suggest the benefits that might flow from their activities. If they fail
to suggest any, the court is entitled to assume there are none.”).
75
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (Sherman Act forbids as “undue restraints” those
contracts that produce monopoly or its consequences).
76
See nn. ___, infra.
77
See Business Electronics, 485 U.S. at 723 (“Under [the Rule of Reason] the factfinder weighs all
of the circumstances of a case in deciding whether a restrictive practice should be prohibited as imposing
an unreasonable restraint on competition”),quoting Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 49; National Society of Professional
Engineers, 435 U.S. at 691 (“the inquiry mandated by the Rule of Reason is whether the challenged
agreement is one that promotes competition or one that suppresses competition.”); Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246
U.S. at 238 (“The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates and perhaps
thereby promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition.”) (quoted
in Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 49).

30
weighing, in turn, requires courts to determine whether the harmful effects of a restraint, if any,

outweigh any redeeming virtues.78

The Court’s injunction to “weigh” “all the circumstances of a case” begs several

questions about what form such “weighing” should take. Someone must produce evidence of what

those circumstances are, and courts must evaluate such evidence by assigning burdens of proof.

After all, the plaintiff’s assertion that a contract produced actual harm is just that, an assertion. At

the same time, defendants’ proffer of cognizable “procompetitive” benefits, while sufficient to avoid

per se condemnation, is not proof. The nature of the adversary system therefore begs three related

questions. First, what, if anything, must a plaintiff show to make out a prima facie case? Second,

if a plaintiff does establish such a case, what must defendants proffer or even show to rebut it and

avoid judgment? Third, if the defendants rebut a prima facie case and thus avoid judgment, how

should courts go about “weighing” the facts and circumstances of a case? As shown below, the

Supreme Court has provided a definitive answer to the second question, while strongly suggesting

answers to the first and third. Taking their cues from the High Court, lower courts, leading scholars

and the enforcement agencies have answered each of these questions for themselves, and the result

has been a common Rule of Reason test with three main elements.

78
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113-15 (examining whether proffered procompetitive efficiencies offset
restraint’s anticompetitive consequences); Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 57, n. 27 (rejecting assertion that courts are
incapable of “balancing intrabrand and interbrand competitive effects of vertical restrictions”); see also, e.g.,
Law v. NCAA, 134 F.3d 1010, 1019 (10th Cir. 1998) (ultimately under the Rule of Reason “the harms and
benefits must be weighed against each other in order to judge whether the challenged behavior is, on balance,
reasonable.”) (citing AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST LAW at ¶ 1502, p. 372). Capital Imaging v. Mohawk Valley
Medical Association, 996 F.2d 537, 543 (2d Cir. 1993) (under the Rule of Reason “the factfinder weighs the
harms and benefits of the challenged behavior”); 7 AREEDA ANTITRUST ¶ 1500, p. 362-63 (Rule of Reason
analysis calls for balancing); id. at ¶ 1502, p. 372 (same); id. at ¶ 1507 (same); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 257-58 (same).

31
 1. Prima Facie Case

As noted above, proof that a contract limits rivalry between parties to it gives rise to

a presumption that the arrangement restricts competition unduly and thus reflects an exercise of

market power. Absent a plausible assertion that the restraint produces cognizable benefits, this

presumption survives, and courts declare the arrangement unlawful per se.79 One could imagine a

similar approach under the Rule of Reason, under which proof of the restraint would itself cast upon

defendants a burden of producing evidence that their arrangement produces cognizable benefits, the

absence of which would establish the existence of harm.80

While the Supreme Court has not squarely addressed this question, lower courts have

uniformly held that plaintiffs must make some threshold showing of what courts call

“anticompetitive harm” over and above the mere existence of a contract that is “anticompetitive” as

courts employ that term in per se analysis.81 Such a showing establishes a prima facie case which,

79
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
80
See nn. ____, supra (discussing judicial assumption that absence of cognizable benefits suggests
that restraint on rivalry harms consumers).
81
See Carrier, The Real Rule of Reason, 1999 B.Y.U. L. REV . at 1268 (lower courts uniformly require
proof of anticompetitive harm before requiring defendants to adduce evidence of benefits). Some have read
NCAA to provide that the mere existence of an explicit restraint on price or output casts upon the defendant
some burden of justification. See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 109 (“when there is an agreement not to compete in
terms of price or output, ‘no elaborate industry analysis is required to demonstrate the anticompetitive
character of such an agreement.’”); California Dental Association, 526 U.S. at 770 (apparently reading
NCAA in this manner) (dicta); Chicago Professional Sports Ltd. Partnership v. National Basketball Ass’n,
961 F.2d 667, 674 (7th Cir. 1992) (reading this passage to hold that any agreement on price or output required
some justification). However, this passage followed the court’s endorsement of the district court’s findings
that the restraint actually reduced output and raised prices, see NCAA, 468 U.S. at 104-108. Thus, some
scholars have argued that the Court did not in fact mean to dispense with the requirement that plaintiffs prove
some anticompetitive harm beyond the mere existence of the restraint to establish a prima facie case. See
HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 262; 7 AREEDA ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1511, pp. 433-434; see
also Law v. NCAA, 134 F.3d 1010, 1020 (10th Cir. 1998). See generally Meese, Farewell To The Quick
Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. 461, 463 (2000) (describing alternate readings of NCAA).

32
if not rebutted, entitles the plaintiff to judgment.82 A requirement that plaintiffs make such a

threshold showing reflects Standard Oil’s normative assumption that, without more, a mere

restriction on parties’ freedom of action does not constitute a cognizable antitrust harm.83 A contrary

approach, i.e., a requirement that defendants adduce evidence of benefits in each and every Rule of

Reason case, would reflect undue hostility toward private contracts, the very activity the Sherman

Act is supposed to promote.84 Economic logic also compels such a requirement. For, once the

defendants have identified a valid procompetitive objective for the restraint, thus avoiding per se

condemnation, mere proof that the arrangement restricts rivalry cannot give rise to a presumption

of tangible anticompetitive effect, since such a restriction is at least equally consistent with a

conclusion that the arrangement is a “normal” or “usual” method of furthering trade.85 Absent some

threshold showing of actual harm, then, courts properly leave assessment of such arrangements to

the marketplace.86

82
See Capital Imaging v. Mohawk Valley Medical Ass’n, 996 F.2d 537, 543 (2d Cir. 1993); 7
AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW ¶1502, at 371 (1986).
83
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. See also Meese, Liberty and Antitrust In The
Formative Era, 79 B. U. L. REV . at 34-80 (formative era state and federal courts repeatedly rejected claims
that contractual restriction on freedom of action constituted a cognizable antitrust harm); Bork, Rule of
Reason 74 YALE . L. J. at 804 (Standard Oil’s “test phrased in wholly economic terms”).
84
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 61-62.
85
See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Corp. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587-95 (1986) (noting that
evidence that is as consistent with procompetitive as with anticompetitive objectives cannot, without more,
support an inference of anticompetitive conduct); Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite, 465 U.S. 752, 761-64 (1984)
(same); First Nat’l Bank v. Cities Serv. Co., 391 U.S. 253, 279-80 (1968) (same). See also Eastman Kodak
Co. v. Image Technical Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 466-67 (1992) (“[l]egal presumptions that rest on
formalistic distinctions rather than actual market realities are generally disfavored in antitrust law.”).
86
Capital Imaging, 996 F.2d at 547 (“justifications are unnecessary where [plaintiff] has not carried
its own initial burden of showing a restraint on competition.”); Consultants & Designers, Inc. v. Butler
Service Group, Inc., 720 F.2d 1553, 1560 (11th Cir. 1983). See also Carrier, The Real Rule of Reason, 1999
B.Y.U. L. REV . at 1308-14 (analysis of legislative history of the Sherman Act supports requirement of

33
 a. The Market Power Filter

While all lower courts agree that a plaintiff must make some threshold showing that

a contract produces tangible economic harm, there is disagreement about just what form such a

showing must take. Led by the Seventh Circuit, a diminishing number of courts now hold that a

plaintiff must first prove that the proponent of a restraint possesses market power of the sort

necessary to harm competition and thus consumers in the manner that the plaintiff alleges.87 Such

a showing involves proof of market structure similar to that which plaintiffs must make when

challenging mergers and must include proof of the boundaries of a relevant market, the defendants’

threshold proof of anticompetitive harm); id. at 1558 (this requirement is “beyond debate”). It should be
noted that some scholars believe that the mere existence of some restraints should give rise to a burden of
justification. See, e.g., John J. Flynn, The “Is” and “Ought” of Vertical Restraints After Monsanto Co. v.
Spray-Rite Service Corp., 71 CORNELL L. REV . 1095, 1143-46 (1986). These scholars believe that
contractual restraint of individual “freedom” is itself a cognizable antitrust harm, separate and apart from any
effect such contracts might have on consumers. Thus, mere proof that a contract restrains a dealer’s
discretion, for instance, gives rise to a presumption of harm according to these scholars. See Alan J. Meese,
Price Theory And Vertical Restraints: A Misunderstood Relation, 45 UCLA L. REV . 143, 176-83 (1997)
(discussing so-called “Populist” approach to vertical restraints). Such an approach is of course inconsistent
with Standard Oil.
87
See, e.g., L.A.P.D., Inc. v. General Electric Corporation, 132 F.3d 402, 405 (7th Cir. 1997)
(Easterbrook, J.); Chicago Professional Sports Ltd. v. National Basketball Ass’n, 95 F.3d 593, 600 (7th Cir.
1996) (Easterbrook, J.); Rothery Storage v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 792 F.2d 210, 217-21 (Bork, J.); Ball
Memorial Hospital, Inc. v. Mutual Hospital Insurance, 784 F.2d 1325, 1334-35 (7th Cir. 1986) (Easterbrook,
J.); Polk Bros., Inc. v, Forest City Enterprises, 776 F.2d 185, 191 (7th Cir. 1985) (Easterbrook, J.); Valley
Liquors, Inc. v. Renfield Importers, Ltd., 678 F.2d 742, 745 (7th Cir. 1982) (Posner, J.).

34
position therein, and the presence of barriers to entry.88 In these circuits, failure to establish market

power undermines the plaintiff’s prima facie case and requires dismissal of the claim.89

b. The Supreme Court Demurs:

Nonetheless, courts that make a showing of market power a necessary condition in

proof of a Rule of Reason claim are swimming against the tide. Most notably, the Supreme Court

has declined to apply the market power filter in each Rule of Reason case it has entertained while

at the same time suggesting an alternate method of establishing “anticompetitive harm” of the sort

necessary to give rise to a prima facie case. In reasoning that seems to apply beyond the individual

cases in question, the Court has suggested that proof of “actual detrimental effects” should suffice

to establish a prima facie case, regardless whether structural indicia suggest that the defendants

possess market power.

Consider first NCAA v. Board of Regents.90 There the Court evaluated an agreement

among the NCAA’s member schools limiting the price and output of televised college football

games. The Court rejected the claim that the arrangement was unlawful per se merely because it

88
See, e.g., Valley Liquors, 678 F.2d at 745 (plaintiff must establish relevant product and geographic
market to prove market power.); Ball Memorial Hosp., Inc., 784 F.2d at 1335-36 (absence of barriers to entry
defeats Rule of Reason claim regardless of defendants’ market share); Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 217-21
(plaintiff’s failure to establish the existence of any market in which the defendants played a significant role
doomed Rule of Reason challenge); id. at 230 (noting that “[M]erger policy has always proceeded by
drawing lines about allowable market shares . . . . We can think of no good reason not to apply the same
inferences to [defendants’] ancillary restraint.”). See also 1992 Department of Justice and Federal Trade
Commission Joint Merger Guidelines, §§ 1-3; FTC V v. Tenet Health Care Corp., 186 F.3d 1045, 1051-54
(8th Cir. 1999) (failure to establish concentration in properly defined market undermines prima facie case);
New York v. Kraft Gen. Foods, Inc., 926 F. Supp. 321, 361-63 (S.D. N.Y. 1995) (same).
89
See, e.g., Ball Memorial Hospital, 784 F.2d at 1335 (“Firms without market power bear no burden
of justification.”); Polk Bros., 776 F.2d at 191; Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 217-21.
90
468 U.S. 85 (1984).

35
purported to limit rivalry on price and output.91 As the Court saw things, some limit on

“competition” was necessary to create the relevant product — college football — in the first place.92

For instance, reliance upon an unbridled market would lead member schools to compete for players

by paying them salaries or waiving any requirement that they attend class, thus undermining an

essential feature of the product in question — amateurism.93

Having declined to apply the per se rule, the Court turned to an application of the

Rule of Reason. Relying upon the district court’s findings of fact, the Court concluded that the

NCAA’s arrangement had resulted in output and prices for the Association’s product — televised

college football games — different from what a “free market” would have produced.94 This, the

Court said, was exactly the sort of effect that constituted a harm under Standard Oil’s articulation

of the Rule of Reason and thus cast upon the defendants a burden of justification.95

91
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (courts deem such a limitation to be “anticompetitive”
for purpose of the per se rule).
92
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-103.
93
The Court noted, for instance, that some agreement not to pay players a salary was necessary to
create amateur football. See id. at 102 (“In order to preserve the character and quality of the “product,”
athletes must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like. And the integrity of the “product”
cannot be preserved except by mutual agreement.”).
94
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 105 (“The District Court found that if member institutions were free to sell
television rights, many more games would be shown on television, and that the NCAA’s output restriction
has the effect of raising the price the networks pay for television rights.”); 106-107 (“The anticompetitive
consequences of this arrangement of this arrangement are apparent. . . . Price is higher and output is lower
than they would otherwise be, and both are unresponsive to consumer preference.”); id. at 106, n. 30 (quoting
district court finding that “Clearly the NCAA controls grossly distort the prices actually paid for an
individual game from that to be expected in a free market.”).
95
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 107-108 (“A restraint that has the effect of reducing the importance of
consumer preference in setting price and output is not consistent with [consumer welfare]. Restrictions on
price and output are the paradigmatic examples of restraints of trade that the Sherman Act was intended to
prohibit.”), citing Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 52-60; id. at 113 (“the NCAA television plan on its face
constitutes a restraint upon the operation of a free market, and the findings of the District Court establish that

36
 Having found the existence of what it deemed anticompetitive harm, the Court then

turned to defendants’ argument that proof of market power was nonetheless necessary to establish

a prima facie case under the Rule of Reason. The Court rejected this argument for two reasons: one

“legal” and one “factual.”96 As an initial “legal” matter, the Court claimed that the restraint in

question, while not unlawful per se, was nonetheless a “naked restraint on price and output, and thus

presumptively harmful.”97 Invoking Professor Areeda and the views of the Solicitor General, the

Court asserted that no detailed market analysis was needed under these circumstances to cast on the

defendant a burden of justification.98 Quoting language from the Solicitor General’s brief, the Court

suggested that an assessment of market power was only one method of ascertaining competitive

effects in Rule of Reason litigation, a method that courts could discard whenever the plaintiff had

demonstrated anticompetitive effects through other means.99 This reasoning, of course, applied well

it has operated to raise prices and reduce output. Under the Rule of Reason, these hallmarks of
anticompetitive behavior place upon petitioner a heavy burden of establishing an affirmative defense which
competitively justifies this apparent deviation from the operations of a free market.”).
96
NCAA, 468 U.S. at 109 (“we must reject this argument for two reasons: one legal, and one
factual.”).
97
See NCAA, 408 U.S. at 109.
98
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 109 (“where there is an agreement not to compete in terms of price or
output, ‘no elaborate industry analysis is required to demonstrate the anticompetitive character of the
agreement.”), quoting Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 692, citing P. AREEDA , THE RULE OF REAS ON IN
ANTITRUST ANAL YSIS : GENERAL ISSUES 37-38 (1981).
99
NCAA, 468 U.S. at 110, n.42. In particular, the Court quoted the Solicitor General’s assertion that:

“While the reasonableness of a particular alleged restraint often depends on the market
power of the parties involved, because a judgment about market power is the means by
which the effects of the conduct on the marketplace can be assessed, market power is only
one test of ‘reasonableness.’ And where the anticompetitive effects of conduct can be
ascertained through means short of extensive market analysis, and where no countervailing
competitive virtues are evident, a lengthy analysis of market power is not necessary.”

37
beyond the context of the restraint in question, to any analysis under the Rule of Reason. At any

rate, the Court said, the district court had found as a factual matter that the defendants did have

market power, because broadcasts of college football were a distinct product for which there were

no reasonable substitutes.100

Just two years later, in F.T.C. v. Indiana Federation of Dentists, the Court again

addressed the requirement for establishing a prima facie case under the Rule of Reason. There the

Justices faced an agreement between dentists in certain Indiana localities not to provide X-rays to

their patients’ insurers.101 While the Court declined to hold the agreement unlawful per se, the

Justices rejected the Federation’s assertion that proof of market power was necessary to establish a

case under the Rule of Reason. In so doing, the Court emphasized that the Commission had found

the presence of “actual, sustained adverse effects on competition.”102 In particular, the Commission

had found that insurers were unable to secure compliance with their requests for X-rays from dentists

that were parties to the restraint.103 In areas not subject to such an agreement, by contrast, insurers

had little difficulty obtaining compliance with their requests.104 Given this finding that the agreement

among the Federation’s members had actually affected the terms of trade, the Court said, there was

See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 110, n. 42, quoting Brief of the United States as Amicus Curiae, at 19-20 (footnote
and citation omitted).
100
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 111-112.
101
See 476 U.S. 447 (1986).
102
Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. at 461.
103
See Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. at 460-61.
104
Id. at 456 (noting evidence that “outside of Indiana, in states where dentists had not collectively
refused to submit x rays, insurance companies found little difficulty in obtaining compliance by dentists with
their requests.”).

38
no reason to go further. Quoting the leading treatise on Antitrust, authored by Professor Areeda, the

Court claimed that proof of market power was simply “a ‘surrogate for detrimental effects, and that

proof of the latter was sufficient to establish a prima facie case.’”105

Of course, both NCAA and Indiana Federation of Dentists involved horizontal

restraints, leaving open the possibility that the Court might apply the market power filter to vertical

arrangements. Neither decision, however, purported to limit its endorsement of the “detrimental

effects” test to the horizontal context; both quoted and relied on sources that contained no such

limitation.106 Moreover, each defined as “free” the market that had existed before the restraints, and

each stated that market power was simply one vehicle for determining whether, in fact, the restraint

produced results different from what a “free” market would otherwise have generated.107

At any rate, even in the vertical context, the Court has declined the opportunity to

employ a market power filter, thus implying that proof of direct effects may suffice to establish a

prima facie case. In Continental T.V. v. GTE Sylvania, for instance, the Court held that courts

should analyze non-price vertical restraints under the Rule of Reason.108 In so doing, however, it

105
See Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. at 460-61, quoting AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST LAW , ¶
1511, p. 429.
106
See Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. at 460-61, quoting AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST LAW , ¶
1511, p. 429. NCAA, 468 U.S. at 110-111 (quoting Brief Amicus Curiae For The United States, at 19-20).
It should be noted that Professor Areeda subsequently embraced a different test, albeit not a market power
filter, for certain non-price vertical restraints. See 8 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW ¶¶ 1648-1649C (1989). See
n. ___, infra (discussing Professor Areeda’s approach to establishing a prima facie case for vertical territorial
and customer limitations). See also Patterson, Market Power In Rule Of Reason Cases, 37 San Diego L.
Rev. at 8-9 (suggesting that rationale of these decisions may apply with equal or greater force in the vertical
context).
107
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text; NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113 (stating that “the NCAA
television plan on its face constitutes a restraint upon the operation of a free market”).
108
See 433 U.S. 36, 38-39, 59 (1978).

39
indicated that reduction in “intrabrand competition” i.e., competition in the sale of the

manufacturer’s own product, was an anti-competitive effect, and remanded the case to the lower

courts for further analysis, even though the defendant’s share of the relevant market was only 5%.109

Moreover, in Jefferson Parish Hosp. Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, the Court declined to declare a tying

contract unlawful per se because the defendant’s market share was insufficient to establish market

power but nonetheless went on to analyze the arrangement under the Rule of Reason.110 The Court

concluded that the plaintiff had not carried its burden because it had not shown that the arrangement

affected the price or quality of the tied product.111

c. An Alternative Approach: The Actual Detrimental Effects Test

Not surprisingly, most lower courts, the enforcement agencies and several leading

scholars have rejected the market power screen proposed by the Seventh Circuit.112 Echoing Indiana

109
See id. at 51-52. See also Continental T.V. v. G.T.E. Sylvania, 694 F.2d 1132 (9th Cir. 1982)
(analyzing arrangement on remand without applying market power filter).
110
See Jefferson Parish Hosp. Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U.S. 2, 29-31 (1985).
111
See id. at 30-31, n. 52 (“The record simply tells us little if anything about the effect of this
arrangement on price or quality of anesthesiological services. As to price, the arrangement did not lead to
an increase in the price charged to the patient. As to quality, the record indicates little more than that there
have never been any complaints about the quality of [the defendant’s] services, and no contention that his
services are in any respect inferior to those of the plaintiff.”).
112
See, e.g. Re/Max International, Inc. v. Realty One, Inc., 173 F.3d 995, 1014-1015 (6th Cir. 1999)
(proof of market power is not necessary to establish a prima facie case), citing Indiana Federation of
Dentists; Law v. NCAA, 134 F.3d 1010, 1019-20 (10th Cir. 1998) (same); Levine v. Central Florida Med.
Affiliates, inc., 72 F.3d 1538, 1551-52 (11th Cir. 1996) (same); K.M.B. Warehouse v. Walker Mfg. Co., 61
F.3d 123, 129 (2d Cir. 1995) (same) (citing Indiana Federation of Dentists); United States v. Brown
University, 5 F.3d 658, 668 (3d Cir. 1993) (same) (citing Indiana Federation of Dentists); Flegel v. Christian
Hospital, Northeast-Northwest, 4 F. 3d 682, 688 (8th Cir. 1993)(same), citing Indiana Federation Of
Dentists); Department of Justice And Federal Trade Commission Guidelines For Collaborations Among
Competitors, ¶ 3.3 (2000) (“Competitor Collaboration Guidelines”); PHILLIP E. AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST LAW
¶ 1511 (1986); SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , LA W OF ANTITRUST , AT 210-12 (approving NCAA’s rejection of
market power inquiry given proof of increased prices); HERBERT HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY:
THE LAW OF COMPETITION AND ITS PRACTICE, 256 (1998). To be sure, Professor Areeda opined that

40
Federation of Dentists and Professor Areeda, these judges, officials and scholars all conclude that

plaintiffs should be able to establish a prima facie case simply by showing that the restraint in

question produces “actual detrimental effects,” such as a reduction in output or quality or an increase

in price.113 Such proof, it is said, establishes a presumption of “anticompetitive harm,” thus giving

rise to a prima facie case.114 These scholars, jurists and officials do not question the normative or

“plaintiffs must ordinarily allege and prove the market that is allegedly restrained and that the defendants
occupy a sufficient role in that market to restrain competition there.” 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , at ¶
1507b, p. 397. He did not, however, suggest that proof of market power was a legal requirement but instead
claimed that plaintiffs would have difficulty proving actual detrimental effects and thus would often be
forced to turn to proof of market power as a surrogate for such effects. See id. at ¶ 1503, p. 376.
It should be noted that Professor Areeda did not confine his support for the “actual detrimental
effects” test to those instances in which the defendants obviously possessed market power. For instance, he
endorsed application of this test in NCAA, where the definition of the relevant market was hotly contested.
See 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1511 at 432-34. Cf. H O VE NK A M P, FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 262
(conceding that resolution of the market power question in NCAA is “indeterminate”); Frank H. Easterbrook,
Ignorance and Antitrust, 119, 124-26 reprinted in ANTITRUST , INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS (Thomas
M. Jorde & David J. Teece eds. 1992) (suggesting that televised college football does not constitute a
relevant market).
113
See, e.g., Re/Max International, 173 F.3d at 1014-15 (proof that practice raised commissions paid
by the plaintiff established prima facie case and shifted burden of production to the defendants); Law, 134
F.3d at 1020 (finding anticompetitive effect sufficient to establish prima facie case where challenged
agreement produced salaries different from those that preceded restraint); Levine, 72 F.3d at 1551-52; K.M.B.
Warehouse, 61 F.3d at 129 (“If a plaintiff can show an actual adverse effect on competition, such as reduced
output, we do not require a further showing of market power”); Brown University, 5 F.3d at 668 (“The
plaintiff may satisfy [its initial burden of proof under the Rule of Reason] by proving the existence of actual
anticompetitive effects such as reduction in output, increase in price, or deterioration in the quality of goods
and services.”); Flegel, 4 F.3d at 688-89 (proof that restraint reduced quality would establish “actual
detrimental effect” and thus give rise to a prima facie case); Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.3;
HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 256, n. 25 (“Detrimental effects include observed decreases
in output, an observed increase in price coordination, or exclusion from the market of firms that seem to be
competitive entrants.”).
114
See, e.g. Re/Max Intern., 173 F.3d at 1014-15 (plaintiff’s showing that defendants’ practices
increased its real estate commissions established prima facie case); Law, 134 F.3d at 1020 (finding
anticompetitive effect sufficient to establish prima facie case where challenged agreement produced salaries
different from those that preceded restraint); Hairston v. Pacific 10 Conference, 101 F.3d 1315, 1319 (9th Cir.
1996) (proof that athletic conference excluded plaintiff from bowl competition sufficed to establish a prima
facie case); J. F. Feeser, Inc. v. Serve-A-Portion, Inc., 909 F.2d 1524, 1542-43 (1990) (plaintiff established
a prima facie case by showing that a supply contract raised the price of defendant’s competitors). Cf.
Levine, 72 F.3d at 1551-52 (finding that plaintiff did not make out a prima facie case where other factors

41
theoretical basis for the market power screen. None questions the premise that “consumer welfare”

should be the sole objective of the antitrust laws, as Standard Oil held.115 All also agree that, as a

matter of economic theory, the possession of market power is a sine qua non of consumer harm.116

Still, proponents of a “detrimental effects” route to a prima facie case argue that market definition

is an uncertain and expensive process, subject to a high rate of error.117 Thus, once a tribunal is

convinced that anticompetitive effects are present, any further analysis of market structure would

likely explained defendants’ rising fees); Tunis Bros. Co., 952 F.2d at 728 (plaintiffs did not make out a
prima facie case where, inter alia, competing dealers prices, though higher, did not rise after the purported
restraint).
115
See, e.g., Re/Max Intern., Inc., 173 F.3d at 1000 (purpose of antitrust is to ensure that efficient
enterprises displace inefficient ones so that “consumers’ economic interests are better served”); Brown
University, 5 F.3d at 673-78 (holding that social and political concerns cannot justify restraint that increases
consumer prices); Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 1.2 (“Overview of Analytical Framework”) (“The
central question [in Rule of Reason analysis] is whether the relevant agreement likely harms competition by
increasing the ability or incentive profitably to raise price above or reduce output, quality, service, or
innovation below what likely would prevail in the absence of the relevant agreement.”); id. at § 3.3 (same);
AREEDA , 1 ANTITRUST ¶ 111 (1978) (arguing that courts should not give dispositive effect to non-economic
values when interpreting and applying the Sherman Act).
It should be noted that two scholars who support the actual detrimental effects test also assert that
courts should read non-economic values into the Sherman Act. See SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE LAW OF
ANTITRUST , at 2-7 (arguing that the purpose of antitrust is the prevention of economic oppression).
However, Professors Sullivan and Grimes do not rely on non-economic values to justify their support for the
actual detrimental effects test.
116
See, e.g., Re/Max Intern. Inc., 173 F.3d at 1015 (antitrust violation entails “use of market” power
to exclude more efficient competitor); Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.31 (equating
“anticompetitive harm” with exercise of market power); AREEDA , VII ANTITRUST , ¶ 1507, p. 400 (“the
plaintiff cannot show a significant trade restraint without giving us some reason to believe that the defendants
have some market power”).
117
See Patterson, Market Power In Rule of Reason Cases, 37 SAN DIEG . L. REV . at 2-3 (“The market
power inquiry is generally acknowledged to be one of the most difficult and inconclusive in antitrust law,
and market definition, which is often a prerequisite to the evaluation of market power, is similarly
problematic.”); Willard Tom & Chul Pak, A Flexible Rule of Reason, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. 391, 399 (2000);
Stephen Calkins, California Dental Association: Not The Quick Look, But Not The Full Monty, 67 Antitrust
L. J. 495, 521 (2000). See also Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.3 (“The Agencies focus on only
those factors, and undertake only that factual inquiry, necessary to make a sound determination of the overall
competitive effect of the relevant agreement.”).

42
seem redundant. Why require the plaintiff to rely on an inference of anticompetitive effects (from

market structure), when it can prove those effects directly?118

Lower courts that embrace the “actual detrimental effects” test do so without

qualification. Nonetheless, some of these same courts have declined to apply this approach to certain

vertical restraints. These courts assert that plaintiffs challenging some restraints must establish harm

to “interbrand competition:” proof that a restraint reduces competition in the sales of a

manufacturer’s own product will not suffice.119 These decisions do not, it should be noted, apply the

market power filter but instead state that plaintiffs can prevail by showing “actual detrimental

effects” in the market as a whole.120 In other vertical contexts, however, several courts have

embraced some version of the actual detrimental effects test.121

118
See Re/Max Intern., 173 F.3d at 1014-15 (proof of actual detrimental effects suggests defendants’
“use of market power to prevent a more-efficient competitor from establishing itself.”); Law, 134 F.3d at
1019 (characterizing proof of market power as “indirect” proof of anticompetitive effects); Brown University,
5 F.3d at 668 (courts often rely upon market power because proof of actual detrimental effects “is often
impossible to make”).
119
See, e.g., Ezzo’s Investors, Inc. v. Royal Beauty Supply, Inc., 243 F.3d 980 (6th Cir. 2001); KMB
Warehouse, 61 F.3d at 127-128 (proof of harm to intrabrand competition not sufficient to establish prima
facie case against vertical distribution restraint). Cf. NCAA (proof that restraint raised prices of defendants’
product sufficed to establish prima facie case). One could argue that the singular focus of these decisions
on the interbrand market is compelled by the Supreme Court’s determination that interbrand competition is
the “primary concern of antitrust law.” See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 724, quoting Sylvania,
433 U.S. at 52, n. 19. However, neither Business Electronics Corp. nor Sylvania held that interbrand
competition is the only concern of antitrust law. If it were, then a cartel of the manufacturer’s own dealers
would be of no antitrust concern. Thus, to the extent that intrabrand competition matters for antitrust
purposes, proof that such competition is restrained and that such a restraint leads to “actual detrimental
effects” would seem sufficient to establish a prima facie case under the best reading of decisions such as
NCAA, Indiana Federation of Dentists, and Sylvania.
120
See, e.g., K.M.B. Warehouse, 61 F.3d at 127-28.
121
See, e.g., Town Sound and Custom Tops v. Chrysler Motors, 959 F.2d 468 (3d Cir. 1992)
(rejecting market power filter when analyzing tying contract under the Rule of Reason); Grappone v. Subaru
of New England, Inc., 858 F.2d 792 (1st Cir. 1988) (Breyer, J.) (conducting Rule of Reason analysis without
regard to market power); Minnesota Association Of Nurse Anesthetists v. Unity Hospital, 208 F.3d 655, 661-

43
 2. Rebutting The Prima Facie Case:

Proof that a restraint is prima facie “anticompetitive,” however made out, does not

itself give rise to liability. Instead, such proof merely casts upon defendants a burden of justification,

that is, of adducing evidence that the restraint in fact produces cognizable “procompetitive” benefits

that may “justify” or “offset” any anticompetitive effects.122 Courts and individual judges

occasionally assert that defendants bear the burden of proving that a restraint creates such benefits.123

However, the vast majority of courts and scholars conclude that the defendants’ burden at this point

is merely a burden of production, that is, of adducing evidence from which a tribunal could conclude

that the restraint produces cognizable benefits.124

Proof that a restraint produces significant cognizable benefits does not entitle the

defendants to judgment, however. Instead, courts, enforcers, and leading scholars all conclude that

62 (8th Cir. 2000) (suggesting that proof that exclusive dealing contract raised defendants’ own prices would
suffice to establish a prima facie case); J.F. Feeser, Inc. v. Serv-A-Portion, Inc., 909 F.2d 1524 (3d Cir. 1990)
(proof that supply contract raised the prices paid by defendants’ competitors sufficed to establish a prima
facie case).
122
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113-20 (where defendant failed to prove existence of procompetitive
benefits, plaintiff prevailed ); Law, 134 F.3d at 1022-24 (same); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1503, p. 376
(courts allow plaintiffs to rely upon proof of market power because proof of actual effects is difficult).
123
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113 (defendants bear “a heavy burden of establishing an affirmative
defense which competitively justifies [the restraint]”); California Dental Ass’n, 526 U.S. at 788 (Breyer, J.
concurring in part dissenting in part) (“In the usual Sherman Act § 1 case, the defendant bears the burden
of establishing a procompetitive justification.”) (emphasis added).
124
See, e.g., Capital Imaging Assocs., P.C., 996 F.2d at 543 (“After the plaintiff satisfies its threshold
burden of proof under the Rule of Reason, the burden shifts to the defendant to offer evidence of pro-
competitive ‘redeeming virtues’ of their combination. Assuming defendant comes forward with such proof
the burden shifts back to plaintiff . . .”) (emphasis added); AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST ¶ 1507b at 397 (“Once the
plaintiff satisfies his burden of persuasion . . . he will prevail unless the defendants introduce evidence
sufficient to allow the tribunal to find that their conduct promotes a legitimate objective.”). It should be
noted that Justice Breyer has cited each of these authorities in support of his assertion that defendants bear
a burden of proof once the plaintiff has established a prima facie case. See California Dental Ass’n, 526 U.S.
at 788 (Breyer J. dissenting). Both of the authorities, however, plainly refer to a burden of production.

44
the fact-finder must weigh any such benefits against the arrangement’s anticompetitive harms,

determining which effects predominate.125 In so doing, judges, officials and scholars assume that

any “redeeming virtues” necessarily coexist with the anticompetitive harm established by the

plaintiff.126 In NCAA, for instance, defendants claimed that the venture and the accompanying

restraint produced marketing efficiencies and was thus procompetitive.127 The Court rejected this

argument, claiming that procompetitive efficiencies would necessarily manifest themselves as

increased output and lower prices.128 The district court, however, had found that the plan reduced

output and increased prices, and the Court held that these findings established that anticompetitive

125
See Law, 134 F.3d at 1019 (“the harms and benefits must be weighed against each other in order
to judge whether the challenged behavior is, on balance, reasonable.”) (citing 7 AREEDA , ¶ 1502, at 372);
Doctor’s Hospital of Jefferson, Inc. v. Southeast Medical Alliance, 123 F.3d 301, 307 (5th Cir. 1997) (“the
anticompetitive evils of a restrictive practice must be balanced against any procompetitive benefits or
justifications within the confines of the relevant market.”); Hairston, 101 F.3d at 1319 (court must determine
“whether the restraint’s harm to competition outweighs the restraint’s procompetitive effect.”); Flegel, 4
F.3d 688 (court “weighs ‘the harms and benefits to determine if the behavior is reasonable on balance’”),
quoting Bhan, 929 F.2d at 1413; Capital Imaging, 996 F.2d at 543 (“once defendant produces evidence of
benefits, the factfinder must weigh the costs and benefits of a restraint”); Competitor Collaboration
Guidelines, § 3.37 (Agencies’ analysis involves “comparison of cognizable efficiencies and anticompetitive
harms . . . in assessing the overall competitive effect of the agreement.”); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , at ¶ 1507b,
p. 397 (absent showing that defendants could achieve benefits via less restrictive means, “the tribunal must
somehow weigh and balance the harm against the benefit”); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at
257-58 (same); SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 211 (rule of reason applied to horizontal
restraints requires court to determine “whether benefits are attained and, if so, whether they exceed the
harms”); id. at 333-35 (same) (endorsing such an approach to vertical restraints).
126
See nn. ___, infra and accompanying text.
127
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113-14 (describing the NCAA’s argument).
128
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 114 (“If the NCAA’s television plan produced procompetitive efficiencies,
the plan would increase output and reduce the price of televised games.”). See also id. at 103 (characterizing
BMI as holding that “a joint selling arrangement may be so efficient that it will increase sellers’ aggregate
output and thus be procompetitive.”).

45
harm swamped any benefits and thus refuted the defendants’ attempt at justification.129 The Court

rejected on similar grounds the defendants’ claim that the restraint furthered “competitive balance”

among the various members of the league.130 Courts, enforcers, and leading scholars have taken

the same approach where defendants claim that efficiencies justify an otherwise anticompetitive

merger, assuming, as they do, that any efficiencies coexist with anticompetitive effects.131

Indeed, the Supreme Court has gone even further, suggesting that a purported

justification is not even cognizable in the first place unless it tends to reduce prices to or below the

level that obtained before the defendants adopted the challenged restraint. In National Society v.

Professional Engineers, the Court evaluated a professional association’s ban on competitive bidding

by its members.132 Defendants sought to justify the ban by asserting that competitive pressure to

129
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 114. See also National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 693
(defendants claim that restraint enhanced quality of product by preventing competitive bidding rested on
assumption that restraint led to higher prices and thus were not cognizable); Competitor Collaboration
Guidelines, at § 3.37 (“Overall Competitive Effect”) (“the Agencies assess the likelihood and magnitude of
cognizable efficiencies and anticompetitive harms to determine the agreement’s overall actual or likely effect
on competition in the relevant market. To make the requisite determination, the Agencies consider whether
cognizable efficiencies likely would be sufficient to offset the potential of the agreement to harm consumers
in the relevant market, for example, by preventing price increases.”); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST
POLICY , at 264 (“the only justifications that are acceptable are those tending to show that the challenged
restraint really does tend to increase output, and thus decrease price.”).
130
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 119-120 (“The hypothesis that legitimates the maintenance of competitive
balance as a procompetitive justification under the Rule of Reason is that equal competition will maximize
consumer demand for the product. The finding that consumption will materially increase if the controls are
removed is a compelling demonstration that they do not in fact serve any such legitimate purpose.”).

See, e.g., FTC v. University Health, 938 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1991); FTC v. Cardinal Health, Inc.,
131

12 F. Supp. 34, 61-63 (D.D.C. 1998); FTC v. Staples, Inc., 970 F.Supp. 1066, 1088-1090 (D.D.C. 1997);
1992 Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Joint Merger Guidelines, § 4.0; HO V EN K AM P ,
FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 503 (endorsing such an approach). See generally, Oliver Williamson,
Economies As An Antitrust Defense: The Welfare Tradeoffs, 58 Amer. Econ. Rev. 18 (1968).
132
435 U.S. 679 (1978).

46
offer services at the lowest price would undermine the quality of services that members would

ultimately provide.133

The Court rejected this argument, holding that the District Court properly refused to

consider evidence supporting it. According to the Court, the very description of the argument

confirmed that the defendants’ agreement had an “anticompetitive purpose and effect.”134 For, the

Court said, defendants’ argument was premised on the assumption that the agreement would

maintain or increase the price level.135 Recognition of such a justification, then, would be

inconsistent with the Sherman Act’s “legislative judgment that ultimately competition will produce

not only lower prices, but also better goods and services.”136

3. The Less Restrictive Alternative:

Indeed, the fact that a restraint results in lowers prices or increased output does not

necessarily doom the plaintiff’s case. Instead, lower courts, agencies and leading scholars all agree

that the fact-finder should subject such proof to a “less restrictive alternative test.”137 Thus, even

133
See id. at 685-86 (discussing defendants’ proferred justification and associated offer of proof).
At bottom, the Association was simply asserting that unrestrained rivalry would produce what economists
call a “lemons equilibrium.” See generally George Akerloff, the Market for ‘Lemons’: Qualitative
Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, 84 Q. J. ECON . 488 (1970).
134
See National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 693.
135
See id. at 693-94.
136
Id. at 695. See also Superior Court Trial Lawyers, 493 U.S. at 423-24 (rejecting argument that
coercive imposition of higher legal fees was justified because increased fees would increase the quality of
representation); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , at ¶ 1504, p. 380-81 (endorsing this aspect of Professional
Engineers); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTIT RUST POLICY, at 194 (defendants’ justification in Professional
Engineers necessarily rested on a desire to exercise market power).
137
See, e.g., Law, 134 F.3d at 1019 (once defendants prove that benefits are present, the plaintiff can
prevail by showing that “those objectives can be achieved in a substantially less restrictive manner”);
Hairston, 101 F.3d 1319 (“Under the rule of reason, the fact-finder examines the restraint at issue and
determines whether the restraint’s harm to competition outweighs the restraint’s pro-competitive effects”);

47
before they “balance” procompetitive benefits against anticompetitive harm, courts and agencies first

allow a plaintiff to prove that a restraint or practice less restrictive of rivalry between the parties

would produce the same benefits produced by the restraint.138 Such proof entitles the plaintiff to

judgment, regardless whether the benefits of the restraint outweigh its costs.139 Indeed, some

scholars have argued that plaintiffs should prevail even if the less restrictive alternative is slightly

Brown University, 5 F.3d at 679; Flegel, 4 F.3d at 688 ([once the defendant adduces evidence of
procompetitive effects] “The plaintiff, driven to this point, must then try to show that any legitimate
objectives can be achieved in a substantially less restrictive manner.”), quoting Bhan, 929 F.2d at 1413;
Capital Imaging Assoc., P.C., 996 F.2d at 543 (“Assuming defendant comes forward with such proof, the
burden shifts back to plaintiff for it to demonstrate that any legitimate collaborative objectives could have
been achieved by less restrictive alternatives.’); U.S. Healthcare, Inc. v. Healthsource, Inc., 986 F.2d 589,
594 (1st Cir. 1993) (rule of reason analysis requires “the most careful weighing of costs and benefits”);
Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.36(b) (“Reasonable Necessity and Less Restrictive Alternatives”)
(“[I]f the participants could have achieved or could achieve similar efficiencies by practical, significantly
less restrictive means, then the Agencies conclude that the relevant agreement is not reasonably necessary
to their achievement.”); AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST , ¶ 1507b; id. at ¶ 1505b; HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST
POLICY, at 257 (endorsing such a test for evaluation of horizontal restraints ancillary to joint ventures); id.
at 489 (endorsing such a test when evaluating vertical distribution restraints); ROSS , PRINCIPLES OF
ANTITRUST LAW , at 157-58 (contending that an ancillary restraint should be unlawful if “broader than
necessary to achieve its purpose”); SULLIVAN & GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 223 (endorsing such
a test for analysis of horizontal restraints); id. at 335 (endorsing such an approach); Thomas A. Piraino, Jr.,
Reconciling Competition And Cooperation: A New Antitrust Standard For Joint Ventures, 35 W.&M. L. Rev.
871, 930 (1994) (endorsing application of less restrictive alternative test to restraints ancillary to legitimate
joint ventures).
138
See, e.g., Re/Max International, Inc., 173 F.3d at 1015 (rejecting proferred benefits as a matter of
law where defendants could have achieved such benefits by less restrictive means); Chicago Professional
Sports Ltd. Partnership v. National Basketball Ass’n, 961 F.2d 667, 675-76 (7th Cir. 1992) (Easterbrook, J.)
(rejecting claim that reduction in free riding justified apparent output rejection where defendants could have
charged purported free riders a fee for use of common resource); General Leaseways, Inc. v. National Truck
Leasing Assoc., 744 F.2d 588, 592 (7th Cir. 1984) (voiding territorial allocation where defendants could have
and did achieve legitimate objective by means of a less restrictive alternative); Mackey v. N.F.L., 543 F.2d
606, 621 (8th Cir. 1979) (voiding regulation of free agency where league could achieve legitimate objectives
via less restrictive means). See also NCAA, 468 U.S. at 114 (finding that defendants attempt at justification
failed where, among other things, “NCAA football could be marketed just as effectively without the television
plan”), citing 546 F. Supp. at 1306-1308; Law, 134 F.3d at 1024, n. 16 (declining to consider less restrictive
alternatives where defendant had not proved existence of cognizable benefits). Cf. County of Tuolumne v.
Sonora Community Hospital, 236 F. 3d 1148, 1159 (9th Cir. 2001) (rejecting asserted less restrictive
alternative as less effective and “significantly more costly” than restraint under challenge).
139
See n. ____, supra.

48
less effective than the restraint under challege.140 While the Supreme Court has not squarely

endorsed such a test, it has premised one per se rule on the assertion that less restrictive alternatives

are always available to advance any legitimate objective.141 This approach is also identical to that

taken by courts and the enforcement agencies in the merger context.142

The less restrictive alternative test may seem counterintuitive, given the Rule of

Reason’s singular focus on consumer welfare.143 After all, application of such a test allows courts

140
See 11 HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST LAW ¶ 1912i, p. 302 (“plaintiff is permitted to show that the same
(or nearly the same) benefits could be achieved by a realistic, less restrictive alternative); 7 AREEDA ,
ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1505, p. 383 (after a plaintiff has established a prima facie case, a restraint “must not only
promote the legitimate objective but must also do so significantly better than the available less restrictive
alternative.”); id. at ¶ 1507b (courts should ask whether “the objective could be achieved (nearly?) as well”
by the less restrictive alternative.”); SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 223 (courts should
ask whether less restrictive alternative proffered by the plaintiff is “nearly as effective”); Sullivan, Viability
Of Horizontal Restraints Law, 75 Calif. L. Rev. at 851 (courts should ask whether legitimate objectives “can
be substantially obtained” by less restrictive alternatives offered by the plaintiff). It should be noted that
Professor Hovenkamp suggests a different approach in a subsequent discussion of the question. See
HOVENKA M P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 257 (asking whether alternative will achieve “the same”
efficiencies).
141
See, e.g., Jefferson Parish, 466 U.S. at 25-26, n. 42; Standard Oil Co. of California v. United
States, 337 U.S. 293, 305-306 (1949) (tying agreements are per se unlawful because less restrictive
alternatives are “protection enough” for any legitimate objectives); International Salt Co. v. United States,
332 U.S. 392, 397-98 (1947) (presence of less restrictive alternative undermines attempt to justify tying
contract); International Business Machines v. United States, 298 U.S. 131, 138-140 (1936) (same). To be
sure, the Court mentioned the presence of less restrictive alternatives in NCAA as one factor militating
against the defendants’ attempt to justify the restraint at issue. See id. at 119. Ultimately, however, the Court
determined that any cognizable benefits produced by the restraint did not outweigh the restraint’s
anticompetitive effects, given the district court’s findings that the restraint resulted in prices higher than they
otherwise would have been. Thus, the Court did not have to determine whether the presence of a less
restrictive alternative could render an otherwise beneficial restraint unlawful. See nn. ___, supra, and
accompanying text.
142
See FTC v. University Health, 938 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1991); FTC v. Staples, 970 F. Supp. 1066,
1090 (D. D. C. 1997) (rejecting efficiency defense where defendants purportedly could have achieved such
benefits via less restrictive means); Joint Merger Guidelines § 4.0. See also HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 503-504 (endorsing application of less restrictive alternative test in the merger
context).
143
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (showing that Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason rests on
solicitude for consumer welfare).

49
to void restraints that are beneficial “on balance” because they do not enhance consumer welfare

“enough.”144 How is it that courts can void a contract that produces none of the evil consequences

of monopoly that Standard Oil deemed the sole target of the Sherman Act?145

There is, however, some internal logic to the less restrictive alternative test, not to

mention some support in the common law.146 After all, the requirement only comes into play after

the plaintiff has demonstrated that the restraint in question produces harmful effects, such as a

reduction in output or increase in prices. If the Rule of Reason is designed to enhance consumer

welfare, then it seems that antitrust doctrine should be concerned with such a departure from the

allocation of resources previously produced by a competitive market, even if such a departure

happens to coincide with the creation of cognizable benefits. Such a departure, it seems, produces

an externality, an externality that reduces consumer welfare below what it could be.147 Presumably

the less restrictive alternative requirement, if properly enforced, will induce firms to achieve

cognizable benefits without simultaneously creating or exercising market power, thus defeating a

144
See Alan J. Meese, Tying Meets The New Institutional Economics, 146 U. Penn. L. Rev. 1, 73
(1997) (showing that, as applied in the tying context, the less restrictive alternative test penalizes defendants
“not for imposing net social harm, but instead for failing to benefit society sufficiently”).
145
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (showing that Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason voids
only those contracts that lead to monopoly or the evils associated with it).
146
See Baltimore Gas, 130 U.S. at 409 (if “the restraint upon one party is not greater than protection
to the other party requires, the contract may be sustained.”); see also ROSS , PRINCIPLES OF ANTITRUST LAW ,
at 158.
147
See KENNETH G. ELZINGA & WI LL IA M BREIT , THE ANTITRUST PENALTIES 3-4 (1976)
(characterizing output reduction below competitive level as an externality); Guido Calabresi, Transaction
Costs, Resource Allocation and Liability Rules — A Comment, 11 J. L. & ECON . 67, 70 (1968) (same).

50
market failure and maximizing the welfare of consumers.148 It therefore seems appropriate that

courts ask whether “there [are] other and better ways . . . by which the collaborators can achieve their

legitimate objectives with fewer harms to competition.”149

III ANTITRUST’S TWO MODELS OF COMPETITION

As noted earlier, Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason analysis should distinguish those

restraints that unduly limit “competition” — which the Court equated with rivalry — from “normal”

or “usual” contracts that limit rivalry but further or develop trade.150 Application of the Rule of

Reason, then, requires courts to employ economic theory to determine whether a contract produces

the consequences of monopoly and thus offends the policy laid down by the Sherman Act.151 For

148
See SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 223; HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST POLICY,
at 259 (noting that a court that condemns an arrangement because of presence of a less restrictive alternative
can limit its relief to a requirement that the parties achieve their objectives by less restrictive means). See
also HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 255-59 (assuming that procompetitive benefits coexist
with anticompetitive effects once a plaintiff has established a prima facie case); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST at
¶ 1507b, p. 397-98 (same); Sullivan, Viability of Horizontal Restraints Law, 75 Calif. L. Rev. at 851 (same).
149
See AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST ¶ 1502, p. 371; id. at 384 (less restrictive alternative analysis asks
whether defendants’ “objective [can] be achieved as well without restraining competition so much”). See
also HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 258 (justifying less restrictive alternative test as search
for “obviously less anticompetitive alternative”); SULLIVAN & GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 335 (‘[If]
strong evidence is offered for the promotional benefits of the distribution restraint, a court should examine
whether less anticompetitive means . . . may be available to achieve the same marketing benefits. That the
producer may prefer a particular distribution restraint is not enough to justify its use because the preference
may be based on an anticompetitive gain from the restraint.”); id. at 223 (applying similar reasoning in the
horizontal context); Sullivan, Viability of Horizontal Restraints Law, 75 Calif. L. Rev. at 851 (“if
[efficiencies] can be substantially obtained by means significantly less threatening to competition, the inquiry
should also end.”).
150
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text.
151
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 63-64 (Sherman Act empowers courts to implement the public policy
evinced by the Act in light of reason). See also Khan, 522 U.S. at 21 (Court should revise precedents “when
the theoretical underpinnings of those decisions are called into question.”); Continental T.V., 433 U.S. at 47-
48 (relying in part on great weight of scholarly commentary as rationale for overruling prior decision). But
see Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 211(stating that the Sherman Act bans those restraints that were invalid at
common law and others that advances in economics show to be unreasonable). See generally Frank H.

51
instance, such theory can inform courts as to whether a contract is “always or almost always

anticompetitive,” “lacking in redeeming virtue,” and thus subject to per se condemnation.152 Such

theory can also assist courts in determining how to structure Rule of Reason analysis of those

contracts that may produce redeeming virtues and thus survive the per se inquiry.153

Courts do not generate economic theory themselves; nor can they locate this theory

in legislative history or common law precedents. Instead, courts exercising “reason” must select

from among those theories that economists and others generate, theories on which advocates rely

when litigating Rule of Reason cases. Any attempt to understand antitrust doctrine as well as the

results produced by Rule of Reason litigation must begin with an understanding of the economic

theories of the time, as such theories inevitably inform judges’ understanding of the restraints the

Sherman Act requires them to evaluate.154

As shown below, economists have over the past few decades provided antitrust courts

with two different economic paradigms capable of implementing Standard Oil’s normative focus

on consumer welfare: price theory and transaction cost economics. Each such paradigm embraces

a normative conception of “competition” functionally related to the efficient allocation of resources.

Easterbrook, Is There A Ratchet In Antitrust Law?, 60 TEX . L. REV . 705 (1982) (arguing that changes in
economic theory can justify expansion or contraction of antitrust prohibitions).
152
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (per se analysis requires courts to determine whether
an agreement is “always or almost always” anticompetitive and, if so, whether the agreements lacks
procompetitive redeeming virtues).
153
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (showing that courts decline to apply per se rule where
defendants adduce plausible assertion that contract produces redeeming virtues).
154
See HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AMERICAN LAW , at 268; Jacobs, Normative Foundations of
Antitrust Economics, 74 N.C. L. REV . at 226-27 (“In almost every era of antitrust history, policymakers have
employed economic models to explain or modify the state of the law and the rationale for its enforcement.”).

52
However, while these two paradigms begin with the same normative focus, each offers a radically

different descriptive account of the causes and consequences of contractual integration, the main

object of Rule of Reason analysis. As a result, each approach implies alternative and contradictory

models of “competition” that courts can and do apply when conducting the sort of Rule of Reason

analysis mandated by Standard Oil.

A predecessor to Transaction Cost Economics (“TCE”), price theory held a monopoly

on antitrust economics for some time, driving both steps of Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason as well

as merger law. More recently, TCE has emerged as a stout competitor to price theory, and each

paradigm currently has significant and contradictory influence over the scope and content of per se

rules. In particular, the Supreme Court continues to embrace the price-theoretic model of

competition in some contexts, relying on price theory to conclude that certain practices are

necessarily “anticompetitive” and without redeeming virtue. At the same time, the Court has

rejected price theory in other contexts, relying upon TCE to conclude that contracts once deemed

“plainly” (and only) anticompetitive can in fact possess redeeming virtues and thus should receive

further analysis under the Rule of Reason.

This part will elucidate the price-theoretic model of “competition” and its historical

influence on antitrust policy and doctrine. This part will also introduce and explain price theory’s

competitor— transaction cost economics — as well as its concomitant model of “competition.”

Unlike price theory, which recognizes only technological competition, TCE suggests that much

competition is essentially contractual, that is, takes the form of competing governance structures,

each of which is ultimately a creature of contract. Finally, this part will examine the continuing

influence of each of these contending models on the current scope of per se rules and thus, by

53
implication, the influence of these paradigms on the category of restraints that survive per se analysis

and thus warrant further analysis under the Rule of Reason. In so doing, this section will set the

stage for Section IV’s analysis and critique of price theory’s continuing influence on the three main

elements of Rule of Reason analysis identified earlier.

A. Contractual Integration And Applied Price Theory:

For decades courts did not really “choose” between competing economic theories.

Instead, economists created and embraced a uniform economic paradigm which lawyers,

enforcement officials, and legal scholars transmitted to the courts. This paradigm, called “price

theory,” dominated economists’ treatment of industrial organization, the study of how firms are

organized and conduct their activities.155 Price theory rested upon several interrelated assumptions

which, when taken together, made up a model that economists and others employed to interpret

business behavior, including contracts, the focus of antitrust’s Rule of Reason.156 The assumptions

animating this paradigm were straightforward. Firms were autonomous entities that interacted with

others through an impersonal and chaotic spot market.157 The boundary between a “firm” and “the

155
See R. H. Coase, Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, 61-64 in POLICY ISSUES AND
RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION (V. Fuchs, ed. 1972) (arguing that, as of 1972,
Industrial Organization consisted simply of applied price theory). Indeed, after reviewing two of the period’s
leading industrial organization texts, Professor Coase concludes that “Essentially [both authors] consider the
subject of industrial organization as applied price theory.” See id. at 62; GEORGE STIGLER , THE
ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRY , 1 (1968) (portraying industrial organization as “price or resource allocation
theory”); JOE S. BAIN , INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION , 25-27 (1968). See also RICHARD CAVES , AMERICAN
INDUSTRY STRUCTURE, CONDUCT , PERFORMANCE , 14 (1967) (“The subject of ‘industrial organization’
applies the economist’s models of price theory to the industries in the world around us.”); Joe S. Bain,
Market Classifications In Modern Price Theory, 56 Q. J. ECON . 560 (1942).
156
See OLIVER WILLIAMSON , THE ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM ,7, 23-26 (1985)
(describing “orthodox framework” of economics from 1940 to 1970s).
157
See Ronald Coase, The Nature of the Firm, 4 ECONOMICA (n.s.) 386, 388 (1937) (asserting that
then-current economic theory described firms as “islands of conscious power in an ocean of unconscious co-

54
market,” that is, the distinction between what a firm produced itself and what it purchased from

others, was solely a function of the firm’s own costs and those of potential suppliers of goods or

services, including distribution. Firms had little or no control over these costs, which were instead

determined by technology.158

operation like lumps of butter coagulating in a pail of buttermilk”) (quoting D.H. ROBERTSON, CONTROL OF
INDUSTRY 85 (1923)).
158
See Richard N. Langlois, Transaction Cots, Production Costs, and the Passage of Time, in
COASEAN ECONOMICS : LAW AND ECONOMICS AND THE NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS 1, 2-4 (Steven G.
Medema ed., 1998) (describing technological focus of so-called “Pigouvian price theory”); Oliver
Williamson, Technology and Transaction Cost Economics, 10 J. ECON . BEH . & ORG . 355, 356 (1988)
(asserting that under, price-theoretic paradigm, “the ‘natural’ boundaries of the firm were thought to be
defined by engineering considerations.”); WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at 7-8
(“The prevailing orientation toward economic organization [under price theory] was that technological
features of firm and market organization were determinative.”); id. at 23-26, 86-89; George Stigler, The
Division of Labor is Limited By the Extent of the Market, 59 J. POL . ECON . 185, 185 (1951) (stating that
economic theory has “generally treated as a (technological?) datum the problem of what the firm does —
what governs its range of activities or functions.”).

Thus, contemporary descriptions of the benefits of vertical integration emphasized cost reductions
of technological origin. See, e.g., F.M. SCHERER , INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE ,
70 (1970) (“The most obvious and pervasive motive for vertical integration is to reduce costs. A classic
example is found in the steel industry: integration of diverse furnace with rolling mill operations eliminates
the need for separate reheating steps.”); WILLIAM G. SHEPARD , MARKET POWER & ECON OM IC WELFARE, 37
(1970) (“The cost advantages in a firm may be of two types: technical and pecuniary. Only technical
economies represent a genuine improvement in social efficiences”); JOE S. BAIN , INDU STRIA L
ORGANIZATION 381 (1968) (“economies of integration generally involve a physical or technical integration
of the processes in a single plant. A classic case is that of integrating iron-making and steel-making to effect
a saving in fuel costs by eliminating a reheating of the iron before it is fed to a steel furnace.”); JOEL DIRLAM
AND ALFRED KAHN , FAIR COMPETITION : THE LAW AND ECONOMICS OF ANTITRUST POLICY, 23 (1954)
(“[I]ntegration may also have strong economic justification and may make competition more effective. To
take the most obvious kind of example, a petroleum refinery that operates both a simple distillation and a
thermal cracking unit or a steel mill that operates side by side a blast furnace and Bessemer converter can
make use of certain by products, like gases or heat, which would be wasted if the steps were performed
disconnectedly. The possible improvements in efficiency are not confined to such engineering savings from
integrated productive operations. A farm machinery manufacturer who can give his salesman a full product
line to carry must make fuller use of the gasoline and time they use in distributing his products then if he had
only one product to sell. And the economic advantages are not limited to efficiency: by integration a firm
may uncover new supplies of raw materials, offer customers new products or alternative sources of old ones,
and reduce costs and prices through bypassing or supplanting a monopolist.”); Robert H. Bork, Vertical
Integration and the Sherman Act, 22 U. CHI . L. REV . 157, 200 (1954) (describing the benefits of vertical
integration as “bypassing a monopoly at one level, or . . . enabling the achievement of internal efficiencies).

55
 Price theory’s exclusive focus on technological efficiencies was not arbitrary or

accidental, but instead reflected a number of overlapping assumptions about the nature of markets

and their supporting institutions as well as the capacity of firms and individuals that participate in

them. For instance, price theory assumed that purchasers had perfect information about the items

they purchased, or that sellers could convey such information, and buyers could absorb it, without

cost.159 Moreover, price theory assumed that bargaining and enforcement costs were non-existent,

with the result that trading partners could negotiate complete contracts governing every aspect of

their relationship, contracts that courts would easily enforce.160 The availability of such perfect

contracting would, in turn, prevent opportunism.161 Indeed, some price theorists assumed that firms

and individuals would refrain from opportunism even in the absence of contractual restraints.162

159
See Langlois, Transaction Costs, Production Costs, and the Passage of Time, at 2 (“In this
kingdom [the price-theoretic paradigm], knowledge remains explicitly and freely transmittable, and cognitive
limits seldom if ever constrain.”). This assumption was implicit in the assertion by many economists that
purchasers should be “free” to choose whether to purchase a product that the seller wished to tie to the main
product. See nn. ___, infra and accompanying text.
160
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at 7 (explaining that price-theoretic paradigm
assumed that judicial enforcement of well-specified contracts would prevent opportunism); Langlois,
Contract, Competition, And Efficiency, 55 BROOKLYN L. REV . at 835 (“The traditional economic theory of
the firm feeds off of . . . the ‘classical’ theory of contract. Briefly put, classical contracting involves
homogenous goods traded among anonymous transactors with all the (possibly contingent) terms explicitly
spelled out in advance.”); Kenneth Arrow, THE ORGANIZATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY: ISSUES PERTINENT
TO THE CHOICE OF MARKET VERSUS NONMARK ET ALLOCATION , in PUBLIC EXPENDITURES AND POLICY
ANAL YSIS , 59, 60 (1970) (“the existence of vertical integration may suggest that the costs of operating
competitive markets are not zero, as is usually assumed in our theoretical analysis.”) (emphasis added).
161
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at 7. See also id. at 30 (defining opportunism as
“self-interest seeking with guile”).
162
For instance, economists argued that, if exclusive dealing between parties produced mutual
benefits, dealers would observe such exclusivity voluntarily, without contractual requirement to do so. See
Derek C. Bok, The Tampa Electric Case And The Problem of Exclusive Arrangements Under The Clayton
Act, 1961 S. CT . REV . 267, 307-308 (“If a strong and legitimate business need for exclusive selling actually
does exist, it is strange that dealers will not follow this policy without being compelled to do so by contract,
for the advantages that result should benefit them as well as the firms from which they buy. Perhaps an

56
Others assumed that firms could combat opportunism by adopting “less restrictive” provisions that

did not limit rivalry.163 In short, price theory assumed that market contracting — transacting — was

costless.164

These assumptions and concomitant emphasis on technological origins of efficiency

rendered economists hostile to vertical integration generally and also had important implications for

economists’ interpretation of the causes and consequences of contractual integration.165 According

occasional dealer will be too inept or short sighted to perceive his best interests, but such men could
presumably be replaced for demonstrable inefficiency without resorting to the widespread use of restrictive
contracts.”); DIRLAM AND KAHN , THE LAW AND ECONOMICS OF ANTITRUST POLICY, at 181-87 (“It is difficult
to see why many of the mutual benefits and socially beneficial consequences of exclusive dealing require
coercion [i.e., contractual requirement] for their achievement.”). Others argued that purchasers were capable
of deciding for themselves whether to purchase a product that a seller wished to “tie” to a main product. See,
e.g., James M. Ferguson, Tying Arrangements and Reciprocity: An Economic Analysis, 30 L. & CO N TE M P.
PROBS . 522, 558-64 (1965); Donald F. Turner, The Validity of Tying Arrangements Under the Antitrust Laws,
72 HARV . L. REV . 50, 66-67 (1958); Alfred E. Kahn, A Legal and Economic Appraisal of the “New”
Sherman and Clayton Acts, 63 YALE L.J. 293, 324, n. 160 (1954); William B. Lockhart & Howard R. Sacks,
The Relevance of Economic Factors in Determining Whether Exclusive Arrangements Violate Section 3 of
the Clayton Act, 65 HARV . L. REV . 913, 946 (1952); Louis B. Schwartz, Potential Impairment of Competition
— The Impact of Standard Oil Co. of Calif. v. United States, 98 U. PA . L. REV . 10, 27 (1949) (“The efficiency
of uniting two products in use [should] be judged by the end user.”). Others assumed that dealers would
provide optimal level of advertising and promotional services absent any vertical restraints. See, e.g.,
Comanor, Vertical Territorial and Customer Restrictions, 81 HARV . L. REV . at 1430 (recognizing free rider
problem but asserting that “unrestricted market” would provide sufficient pre-sale promotional services by
dealers).
163
See Donald Turner, The Definition of Agreement Under the Sherman Act: Conscious Parallelism
and Refusals to Deal, 75 HARV . L. REV . 655, 699 (1962) (requirement that dealer use its best efforts within
an area of “primary responsibility” will assure effective promotion by dealers); KAYSEN & TURNER ,
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 158 (automobile manufacturer could rely upon warranties and dealer good faith to
ensure that dealers employed appropriate replacement parts).
164
See Coase , The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 6 (noting that “the concept of transaction
costs” “is largely absent from current economic theory”).
165
See BAIN , INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION , at 381 (“The trained observer tends to form a considerable
suspicion from casual observation that there is a good deal of vertical integration which, although not
actually uneconomical, is also not justified on the basis of any cost savings. This is apparently true in
particular of the integration of distributive facilities by manufacturing firms. In most cases the rationale of
the integration is evidently the increase of market power of the firms rather than a reduction in cost.”)
(emphasis added); BLAIR , ECONOMIC CONCENTRATION , at 25-40.

57
to price theory, firms realized all relevant efficiencies within their boundaries, in the process of

manufacturing the product in question.166 Thus, once a product was sold, and title to it passed

beyond the boundaries of the firm, a firm could do nothing to influence its quality or the satisfaction

that the consumer received from it. As a result, price theory recognized only “standard contracts,”

that is, agreements of purchase and sale that simply mediated passage of title from firm to consumer

(or dealer), perhaps with an accompanying warranty.167 Price theorists did recognize that complete

vertical integration could, in rare cases, produce technological efficiencies that were realized

“within” a firm, before passage of title.168 However, they saw no benevolent purposes for incomplete

integration achieved by so-called “nonstandard” contracts, agreements that reached “beyond” the

firm and controlled the discretion of purchasers after the passage of title or other transaction.169

Professor Williamson has summarized this intellectual milieu as follows:

166
See Langlois, Contract, Competition, And Efficiency, 55 BROOKLYN L. REV . at 834 (“the
economists’ firm – at least until recently – was a black box, a production function that took in inputs and
transformed them into outputs.”); id. at 835 (describing traditional theory’s failure to recognize benefits of
non-standard contracting); Oliver Williamson, Delimiting Antitrust, 76 GEO . L.J. 271, 272 (1987) (describing
the “prevailing practice [under price theory] of describing the firm as a production function whose natural
boundaries were defined by technology. Economic inputs were thus transformed by the production
technology into economic outputs. Organizational considerations [that might explain the boundaries of
firms] were effectively suppressed.”); WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at 371
(describing price-theoretic view that “true economies take a technological form, [and] hence are fully realized
within firms. [Hence], according to the price-theoretic paradigm, there was nothing to be gained by
introducing nonstandard terms into market-mediated exchange.”); Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The
Law, at 3 (“The firm to an economist . . . ‘is effectively defined as a cost curve and a demand curve, and the
theory [of the firm] is simply the logic of optimal pricing and input combination.’”), quoting MARTEN
SLATER , FORWARD TO EDITH T. PENROSE , THE THEORY OF THE GROWTH OF THE FIRM , ix (2d ed. 1980).
167
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at 23 (defining “classical market exchange – whereby
a product is sold at a uniform price to all consumers without restriction”).
168
See n. ___, supra and accompanying text (describing price-theorists’ belief that complete vertical
integration could create technological efficiencies).
169
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, 23-25 (distinguishing between “classical market
exchange” and “nonstandard contracting”).

58
 “The allocation of economic activity as between firms and markets
was taken as a datum; firms were characterized as production
functions; markets served as signaling devices; contracting was
accomplished through an auctioneer; and disputes were disregarded
because of the presumed efficacy of court adjudication. The
possibility that subtle economizing purposes are served by
organizational variety does not arise within — indeed is effectively
beyond the reach of — this orthodox framework. Correspondingly,
the prevailing public policy attitude toward unfamiliar or nonstandard
business practices during that interval was deep suspicion and even
hostility.”170

Because non-standard agreements had no apparent efficiency purposes, price theorists condemned

such arrangements as “monopolistic” attempts to acquire or protect market power.171

170
WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at 7. Professor Coase offered a similar evaluation of the
economic milieu associated with price theory:

“If an economist finds something — a business practice of one sort or another — that he
does not understand, he looks for a monopoly explanation. And as we are very ignorant in
this field, the number of ununderstandable practices tends to be rather large, and the reliance
on a monopoly explanation is frequent.”

Coase, Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, at 67.

171
For instance, the leading textbook on industrial organization concluded that tying contracts and
exclusive dealing arrangements had a “general tendency to create and preserve more concentrated market
structures than would otherwise exist, and to elevate barriers to the entry of new sellers to various markets.”
See BAIN , INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION , at 364; id. at 567 (asserting that the “exclusionary potential of tying
contracts” is “obvious”). Other scholars took similar positions. One economist concluded that tying
contracts produced no benefits that could not be achieved by other means and necessarily reflected exercises
of market power. See Donald F. Turner, The Validity of Tying Arrangements Under The Antitrust Laws, 72
HARV . L. REV . 50 (1950); MILLER, UNFAIR COMPETITION 199 (1940) (same). Another opined that “it is
almost self-evident that exclusive-dealing contracts, when imposed by large suppliers, will injure competition
by preventing the smaller manufacturers from getting their goods to the market and by depriving distributors
and dealers of their freedom to handle lines of competitive producers. There are few, if any, circumstances
under which exclusive dealing imposed by large concerns can be envisaged as promoting competition.” See
BLAIR , ECONOMIC CONCENTRATION , at 368. Others concluded that contractual restraints on rivalry between
dealers could produce no benefits, but would instead lead to excessive promotion that served only to enhance
the manufacturer’s market power. See William S. Comanor, Vertical Territorial and Customer Restrictions:
White Motor and Its Aftermath, 81 HARV . L. REV . 1419, 1436 (1968) (arguing that contractual integration
cannot produce efficiencies).

59
 B. Price Theory And The Meaning Of Competition:

Price theory’s exclusive focus on technological efficiencies and concomitant hostility

toward non-standard contractual restraints implied a particular, narrow definition of “competition.”

As explained earlier, Standard Oil equated “competition” with rivalry, without assigning any

technical economic meaning to either term. Within the lexicon of Standard Oil, then, all contracts

are “anticompetitive” in the sense that they restrain the freedom of action of parties to them.172 The

mere fact that a contract was “anticompetitive” in this sense, however, did not condemn the

arrangement under the Rule of Reason.173 In a similar way, the current approach to implementing

the per se rule treats any restraint on rivalry as “anticompetitive,” subject to a plausible assertion that

the arrangement produces redeeming virtues.174

Price theory, by contrast, imbued the word “competition” with normative significance

and elevated the term to a technical economic concept functionally related to the efficient allocation

172
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (describing Standard Oil’s definition of competition
as “rivalry”, without any economic content).
173
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text. As Justice Brandeis put it in Chicago Bd of Trade,
a mere reduction in competition did not indicate that a restraint produced the consequences of monopoly:

“The [government’s] case was rested upon the bald proposition, that a rule or agreement by which
men occupying positions of strength in any branch of trade, fixed prices at which they would buy
or sell during an important part of the business day, is an illegal restraint of trade under the Anti-
Trust Law. But the legality of an agreement or regulation cannot be determined by so simple a test,
as whether it restrains competition. Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade,
restrains. To bind, to restrain is of their very essence.”

See Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238 (emphasis added).

174
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text.

60
of resources.175 Within this paradigm, a restraint is “competitive” if it affects the allocation of

resources in a manner likely to enhance social welfare, or, in the lexicon of Standard Oil, “advances

trade.”176 The assumptions of price theory described earlier produced a particular, narrow version

of legitimate “competition,” behavior that, when pursued by all market participants, maximized

social welfare. In its most doctrinaire form, price-theoretic “competition” was entirely passive,

consisting simply of responding to market demand by setting output where price equaled marginal

cost.177 Moreover, price-theoretic “competition” was more than a behavioral concept; it was also a

“state of affairs.”178 If replicated in all industries, such “competition” produced a “general

competitive equilibrium,” and with it optimal prices, output and quality in all sectors.179 Derived

from the antiseptic model of perfect competition, this definition of “competition” excluded from its

175
See Paul McNulty, Economic Theory and the Meaning of Competition, 84 Q. J. ECON . 639, 640-
50 (1968) (describing classical conception of competition and distinguishing it from modern definition).
176
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (showing that Standard Oil approved contracts that
advanced trade).
177
See MACHOVEC , PERFECT COMPETITION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMICS, at 16 (under
perfect competition model “the only acceptable behavior of firms is to mechanically reallocate capital in
response to a new set of perfect information emissions – provide like manna from heaven, indiscriminately
and simultaneously – to the roboticized helmsmen of each firm.”); McNulty, Economic Theory and the
Meaning of Competition, 84 Q. J. ECON . at 648-50; Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 3 (“The
firm to an economist . . . is ‘effectively defined as a cost curve and a demand curve, and the theory [of the
firm] is simply the logic of optimal pricing and input competition’”), quoting Market Slater, Forward to
EDITH PENROSE , THE THEORY OF THE GROWTH OF THE FIRM , ix (2d ed. 1980). See also SHEPHERD , MARKET
POWER & ECONOMIC WELFARE, at 25-27; CAVES , AMERICAN INDUSTRY : STRUCTURE, CONDUCT ,
PERFORMANCE at 38; STOCKING & WATKINS, MONOPOLY AND FREE ENTERPRISE , at 6-9.
178
See McNulty, Meaning of Competition, 84 Q. J. Econ. at 643-45; HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND
AMERICAN LAW , at 273-74 (distinguishing between classical notion of competition and modern notion, the
latter of which views competition as a “state of affairs”).
179
See SCHERER , INDUSTRIAL MARKET STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE , at 12-19
(describing model of “general competitive equilibrium”); SHEPHERD , MARKET POWER & ECON OM IC
WELFARE, at 25-29 (same). See also KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 12-13.

61
ambit all varieties of non-standard contracts, as well as practices — like advertising, product

differentiation, and price cutting — that businesspeople would deem methods of doing battle with

competitors.180 According to the models employed by many economists, such practices were not

“competitive” at all, but instead thwarted “competition” and created or preserved market power.181

Commenting on the economist’s vision of “competition” in 1948, Professor Hayek wrote:

“The peculiar nature of the assumptions from which the theory of

competitive equilibrium starts stands out very clearly if we ask which
of the activities that are commonly designated by the verb ‘to
compete’ would still be possible if those conditions were all satisfied.
Perhaps it is worth recalling that, according to Dr. Johnson,
competition is ‘the action of endeavoring to gain what another
endeavors to gain at the same time.’ Now, how many of the devices
adopted in ordinary life to that end would still be open to a seller in
a market in which so-called ‘perfect competition’ prevails. I believe
that the answer is exactly none. Advertising, undercutting, and
improving (“differentiating”) the goods or services produced are all,
excluded by definition — ‘perfect’ competition means indeed the
absence of all competitive activities.”182

180
See Langlois, Contract, Competition, And Efficiency, 55 BROOKLYN L. REV . at 835 (linking
classical theory of contract and related traditional theory of the firm to perfect competition model). See also
McNulty, Meaning of Competition, 84 Q. J. Econ. at 649 (“Perfect competition, on the other hand, is an
equilibrium situation in which price becomes a parameter from the standpoint of the individual firm and no
market activity is possible . . . [t]hus, the single activity which best characterized the meaning of competition
in classical economics – price cutting by an individual firm in order to get rid of excess supplies – becomes
the one activity impossible under perfect competition.”).
181
See Joan Robinson, The Impossibility of Competition, 245 in MONOPOLY AND COMPETITION AND
THEIR REGULATION (E. H. Chamberlin, Ed. 1954) (noting that “competition in practice is very imperfect”);
id. at 245-46 (“in the broad sense in which business men understand it, [competition] largely consists in
destroying competition in the narrow economist’s sense by product differentiation, advertisement, and the
creation of goodwill.”). See also Friedrich Hayek, Competition As Discovery Procedure, in F. A. HAYEK ,
NEW STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS , ECONOMICS , AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS , 179 (1978)
(“[economists] who seem to derive their conception of competition solely from modern textbooks, have not
unnaturally concluded that competition does not exist.”).
182
See Hayek, The Meaning Of Competition, at 96.

“This theory [of competitive equilibrium] throughout assumes the state of affairs already to exist
which, according to the truer view of the older theory, the process of competition tends to bring

62
 While Professor Hayek accurately described the views of many economists, there

were others who possessed a more sophisticated view of the subject. Many industrial organization

theorists who otherwise embraced the price-theoretic paradigm often recognized that the real world

usually departed from that depicted by perfect competition models.183 For instance, economists

recognized the existence of negative and positive externalities that might cause markets to fail to

achieve the optimum allocation of resources.184 Moreover, economists recognized that firms often

strove to improve their products or discover new (technological) methods of production, thus

lowering costs.185 These efforts often led firms to expand significantly, sometimes by merger, taking

about (or to approximate) and that, if the state of affairs assumed by the theory of perfect
competition ever existed, it would not only deprive of their scope all the activities which the verb
“to compete” describes but would make them virtually impossible”

Id. at 92. See also, Hayek, Competition As Discovery Procedure, at 179 (“It is difficult to defend economists
against the charge that for some 40 to 50 years they have been discussing competition on assumptions that,
if they were true of the real world, would make it wholly uninteresting and useless.”) (emphasis is original);
Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 9-10 (“Monopoly and impediments to trade such as tariffs
are easily handled by normal price theory, whereas the absence of transaction costs in the theory makes the
effect of a reduction in them difficult to incorporate in the analysis.”); McNulty, Economic Theory And The
Meaning Of Competition, 84 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS at 641 (“As it is, it is one of the great
paradoxes of economic science that every act of competition on the part of a businessman is evidence, in
economic theory, of some degree of monopoly power, while the concept of monopoly and perfect
competition have this important common feature: both are situations in which the possibility of any
competitive behavior has been ruled out by definition.”).
183
See KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 8 (“The existence of significant economies of
scale at both the plant and the firm level over some size range means that firms are not generally insignificant
in relation to the market.”).
184
See SHEPHERD, MARKET POWER & ECONOMIC WELFARE, at 28; KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST
POLICY, at 13, n. 12.
185
See SCHERER , INDUSTRIAL MARKET STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE , at 22 (describing
existence of product differentiation as a potentially beneficial departure from perfect competition); MILLER,
UNFAIR COMPETITION , at 8 (“Competition is a very complex phenomenon. It may take any one of several
forms. It may become a rivalry in buying factors of production of better quality or in buying factors on more
favorable terms. It may consist in an endeavor to organize and utilize factors more effectively in producing
goods and services, this involving a rivalry in technological processes as well as in economy in the use and

63
advantage of (technological) economies of scale.186 As a result, many industries were populated by

only a few sellers, and economists recognized that some such departure from perfect competition was

necessary to maximize social welfare.187 Nonetheless, while economists recognized that markets

might not always be populated by numerous sellers, they generally embraced the other assumptions

of the perfect competition model, assumptions which suggested that efficiencies could only be

realized within the firm.188

organization of men and materials. It may take the form of rivalry in attracting customers. This in turn may
be done in various ways: by price competition, by informative or competitive advertising, by differentiation
of product or of many ancillary terms and conditions of sale, or finally by effective choice and control of
the channels of distribution.”). It should be noted that Professor Miller’s fulsome definition of competition
did not include non-standard contracts. See id. at 199-200 (tying contracts only useful where seller has a
“strong monopoly position”); id. at 210 (exclusive dealing arrangements only useful where there is “some
element of monopoly control”).
186
KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 128-29 (“From the standpoint of both buyers and
sellers, mergers may promote efficiency. Where the appropriate scale of operations or degree of integration
of the firm changes, mergers may provide the most economical method of reshaping the structures of existing
firms to the new cost conditions.”).
187
See, e.g., KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 5-8; STOCKING AND WATKINS, MONOPOLY
AND FREE ENTERPRISE , at 53-61, 108; id. at 13 (“Pure competition can scarcely be realized in a machine
age.”); DIRLAM AND KAHN , FAIR COMPETITION , at 32 (“Product differentiation, for example, is often a means
of competition that serves the public by providing minimum assurances of quality and by catering to a real
consumer desire for product improvement or variation.”); id. at 33 (“Rarely does the cause of effective
competition demand an attack on an industry because of the fewness of the firms that make it up.”).
188
See F. A. Hayek, The Meaning of Competition, in INDIVIDUALISM AND EC ON O M IC ORDER 94
(1948) (asserting that most assumptions of the perfect competition model “are equally assumed in the
discussion of the various ‘imperfect’ or ‘monopolistic’ markets, which throughout assume certain unrealistic
‘perfections.’”); Langlois, Transaction Costs, Production Costs, and the Passage of Time, at 2 (noting that
Joan Robinson and Edward Chamberlin, who pioneered the theory of oligopoly, relied upon various
assumptions of the perfect competition model). See also TURNER AND KAYSEN , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 7
(“the rigorous model of the perfectly competitive market is the appropriate starting point of any definition
[of competition relevant to antitrust policy].”); id. at 8 (“though the model of [perfectly] competitive market
structure is not usable as such in our definition of competition, other concepts of the model are.”). While
Professors Turner and Kaysen recognized that the perfect competition model could not provide the final
definition of competition relevant to antitrust policy, they nonetheless assumed that any practice that a firm
would not adopt in a perfectly competitive market reflected an exercise of market power. Id. at 8. See also
n. ____, infra.

64
 Price theory’s model of competition was more than theoretical: it also influenced the

policy prescriptions of scholars, particularly those interested in antitrust regulation.189 In particular,

this account of “competition” provided a benchmark against which economists and others evaluated

the causes and consequences of non-standard contracts. The classic articulation of this approach can

be found in a text authored by two Harvard scholars, one an economist, who premised their work on

the assumption that any business practice that would not be adopted by a similar firm operating in

a perfectly competitive market necessarily reflected the possession and exercise of market power.190

If unchecked, such anticompetitive practices could entrench and enhance a firm’s market power,

protecting the oligopolistic structure of non-competitive industries.191 Such reasoning applied with

particular force to non-standard contracts, which limited rivalry, produced no cognizable benefits,

189
See Coase, Industrial Organization, at 66-67 (describing particular influence that price theoretic
approach to industrial organization had on antitrust policy).
190
See KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 8 (“where firms can persistently behave over
substantial periods of time in a manner which differs from the behavior that the competitive market would
impose on competitive firms facing similar cost and demand conditions, they can be identified as possessing
market power.”); id. at 75 (same); STOCKING AND WATKINS, MONOPOLY AND FREE ENTERPRISE , at 108
(“The effectiveness of competition is apt to vary directly with the number of sellers up to the maximum
consistent with the economies of scale.”); BAIN , INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION , at 364 (concluding that
concentrated “market structure . . . is to some extent created by conduct, although the conduct in question
generally is feasible because of certain basic environmental and structural characteristics of industries that
various sellers can exploit to their advantage”) (emphasis added). Despite the qualification (“generally”),
Professor Bain offered no account of how or why such contracts would arise absent an already concentrated
market structure. Another Harvard Scholar assumed that any practice other than the “efficient organization
of production” reflected the exercise of market power. See MILLER, UNFAIR COMPETITION , at 8 (“In a purely
competitive market competition becomes simply a matter of efficiency in organization of production and the
correct determination of the quantity to be produced. But such conditions are rare. It is doubtful whether
there is any market in which neither the demand nor the supply is significantly affected by monopolistic or
monopsonistic forces.).
191
KAYSEN & TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 79-80, 89-91. See also BAIN , INDUSTRIAL
ORGANIZATION , at 363-65 (concluding that various non-standard practices fortify pre-existing market power).

65
and thus exercised or created market power to the detriment of consumers.192 Public policy should

intervene in the market to eradicate such “anticompetitive” practices when feasible, and such

intervention would eliminate market imperfections, render each industry as “competitive” as

possible, and assure optimal prices, output and quality.193 Many economists held similar views, and

other antitrust scholars followed suit, evaluating and condemning various non-standard contracts as

“anticompetitive” attempts to create, protect, or exercise market power.194

192
See KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 157-59 (arguing that tying contracts necessarily
reflect an exercise of market power); id. at 156-57 (concerted refusals to deal are nearly always
anticompetitive and thus should be unlawful per se). Other economists agreed. See BAIN , INDUSTRIAL
ORGANIZATION , at 363-65 (defining tying and exclusive dealing contracts as “predatory” practices that
thwart effective competition); MILLER, UNFAIR COMPETITION , at 199 (“A tying arrangement is a successful
business practice only in the circumstance that the seller has a strong monopoly position in one or more
products.”); id. at 210 (“exclusive dealing arrangements . . . are useful only in markets where there are some
elements of monopoly control in the manufacture of the product.”). It should be noted that Professors
Kaysen and Turner made no attempt to explain those tying contracts imposed in apparently competitive
markets. Such arrangements, they said, “were random small transactions of no consequence.” See KAYSEN
AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 159.

193
See KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, 12-13 (citing A. C. PIGOU , ECONOMICS OF
WELFARE); see also BAIN , INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION , at 503 (public policy should encourage “workably
competitive markets” and “reasonably good economic performance” by, inter alia, banning predatory and
exclusionary conduct); id. at 506-508; id. at 14 (“workable (reasonably satisfactory) competition is revealed
by, and is the result of whatever gives rise to, reasonably satisfactory or workable market performance —
performance that enhances the aggregate economic welfare to a reasonable degree. Ideal performance is
found in adaptations of enterprises to their markets which enhance to the maximum possible degree the
attainment of overall economic objectives relating to employment, efficiency, income distribution, and so
on. “Workable” performance generally refers to adaptations of enterprises to their markets which reasonably
approximate the ideal, or do not embody gross and important discrepancies from it.”); id. at 14-15 (describing
as “ideal” economic performance that produces prices equal to cost, i.e., perfect competition).
194
See nn. ___, supra (collecting authorities agreeing with Kaysen and Turner). Other classic
exemplars of this approach include: LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, ANTITRUST (1977); William Commanor, White
Motor And Its Aftermath, 81 HARV . L. REV . 1419 (1967); EARL W. KINTNER , AN ANTITRUST PRIMER (1964);
LOUIS SCHWARTZ , FREE ENTERPRISE AND ECON OM IC ORGANIZATION (1959); JOEL DI RL AM & ALFRED KAHN ,
FAIR COMPETITION (1954); GEORGE W. STOCKING AND MYRON W. WATKINS, MONOPOLY AND FREE
ENTERPRISE (1951); JOHN PERRY MILLER, UNFAIR COMPETITION (1940). See also Jacobs, The Normative
Foundations Of Antitrust Economics, 74 N. C. L. Rev. at 226-27 (contending that “Harvard School” of
industrial organization dominated antitrust thought in the 1960s).
Indeed, even Professor Clark, praised by Professor Hayek for embracing an expansive definition of
“competition,” defined competition in a manner that seemed to exclude contractual limits on the discretion

66
 C. Judicial Reliance on Price Theory:

For over three decades, courts implementing Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason embraced

price theory with a vengeance, often at the behest of expert enforcement agencies.195 As explained

earlier, Standard Oil equated “competition” with rivalry, which normal contracts could “duly”

restrict.196 Ultimately, however, courts came to adopt price theory’s more stylized definition of the

term, which treated “competition” as that collection of business practices leading to the efficient

allocation of resources and thus the maximization of social welfare. While this redefinition of

“competition” retained Standard Oil’s normative focus on consumer welfare, courts simultaneously

embraced the various descriptive assumptions generated by price-theory’s brand of industrial

organization and the particular model of competition that these assumptions implied.197 More

precisely, courts during this era held that antitrust regulation was designed to interdict any and all

limitations on “competition,” which they defined as moment-to-moment technological rivalry

of firms, i.e., non-standard contracts.

“Competition between business units in the production and sale of goods is the effort of such units,
acting independently of of one another (without concerted action), each trying to make a profitable
volume of sales in the face of the offers of identical sellers of identical or closely similar
products.”

See JOHN MAURICE CLARK , COMPETITION AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS , 13 (1961). See also Hayek, The
Meaning Of Competition, at 92; J.M. Clark, Toward A Concept Of Workable Competition, 30 Amer. Econ.
Rev. 241 (1940) (arguing that the perfect competition model did not provide a useful benchmark for judging
the efficacy of competition in actual markets).
195
The period in question began about 1940 and ended in 1977.
196
See nn. ___,supra and accompanying text.
197
See nn. ___,supra and accompanying text (describing various assumptions associated with price-
theoretic industrial organization).

67
between completely autonomous firms unconstrained by non-standard contracts.198 What followed

was the so-called “inhospitality tradition” of antitrust, which manifested itself in the form of extreme

hostility toward any contractual restraint on the “freedom” of individuals or firms to engage in head-

to-head rivalry.199 According to this approach, practices inexplicable under the price-theoretic model

198
A different Professor Clark, who embraced a broad view of the meaning of competition
(approvingly) characterized antitrust’s definition of “competition” as follows:

“The concept of competition that has grown out of the antitrust laws is not confined
to price competition, but accords a place to competition as affecting productive
techiques and quality and design of products. As to productive techniques, it is
especially concerned that access of producers to good and efficient techniques should
be as wide as is consistent with the essential purpose of the patent system. This system
is built around the principle of stimulating innovation in products and technical
methods by offering inventors a temporary monopoly in the particular inventions
each has made, on conditions that their specifications are publicly disclosed. . . .
A balanced concept of competition – one in which the aspects of productive
techniques, improved and differentiated products, and price all play a part.”

See J.M. CLARK , COMPETITION AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS , 47 (1961). This, of course, is a purely
technological conception.
199
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at 19 (describing inhospitality
tradition of antitrust); id. at 370-73 (describing influence of inhospitality tradition on antitrust treatment of
non-standard contracts); Easterbrook, Is There A Ratchet In Antitrust Law?, 60 TEX . L. REV . at 715 (“[the]
inhospitality tradition of antitrust . . . called for courts to strike down business practices that were not clearly
procompetitive. In this tradition an inference of monopolization followed from the courts’ inability to grasp
how a practice might be consistent with substantial competition. The tradition took hold when many
practices were genuine mysteries to economists, and monopolistic explanations were congenial. The same
tradition emphasized competition in the spot market. Long-term contracts, even those arrived at by
competitive processes, were deemed anticompetitive because they shut off day-to-day rivalry.”). The phrase
“inhospitality tradition” apparently was coined by Professor Donald Turner, an economist who headed the
Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in the 1960s. According to Professor Turner “I approach
territorial and customer restrictions not hospitably in the common law tradition, but inhospitably in the
tradition of antitrust law.” Donald F. Turner, Some Reflections on Antitrust, 1966 N.Y. ST . B.A. ANTITRUST
L. SYM P . 1, 1-2. See also Jacobs, Antitrust Economics, 74 N. C. L. REV . at 227-28 (describing so-called
Harvard School of industrial organization and antitrust policy during this period); nn. ____, infra and
accompanying text (collecting decisions contending that (price-theoretic) competition would maximize social
welfare.

68
of “competition” were necessarily “anticompetitive” attempts to acquire or exercise market power

and thus resulted in a “non-competitive” allocation of resources.200

This “inhospitality tradition” pervaded antitrust law in general and the Sherman Act

in particular, especially at the per se stage of analysis. The result was a vast expansion of the scope

of per se rules and concomitant contraction of the scope and importance of more thorough “Rule of

Reason” analysis. Agreements limiting rivalry between joint venturers were unlawful per se, even

if such arrangements were ancillary to an otherwise legitimate venture that enhanced rivalry with

non-venturers and thus appeared to produce benefits for consumers.201 According to the Supreme

Court, such agreements amounted to a “destruction of competition in one sector of the economy,”

infringed the “freedom of individual members [of a venture] to compete,” were “always or almost

always anticompetitive,” and produced no redeeming virtues.202 Collective refusals to deal were

similarly unlawful per se, regardless whether they produced or threatened to produce harm to

consumers.203 Such arrangements deprived their victims of the “freedom to buy . . . in an open

200
Easterbrook, Is There A Ratchet In Antitrust Law?, 60 Tex. L. Rev. at 715.
201
See United States v. Topco, 405 U.S. 596 (1972) (declaring ancillary restraints allocating
territories among joint venture partners unlawful per se, despite district court finding that participants
possessed no market power and that venture enhanced competition); United States v. Sealy, Inc., 388 U.S.
350 (1967) (same). See generally, Meese, Farewell To The Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 469-70, n.
30-31 (quoting extensively from district court findings in Topco that the restraints facilitated the success of
the venture vis a vis larger, integrated chains, thus serving the interests of consumers).
202
See Topco, 405 U.S. at 610; id. at 610-611; id. at 610 (“Implicit in such freedom is the notion that
it cannot be foreclosed with respect to one sector of the economy because certain private citizens or groups
believe that such foreclosure might promote greater competition in a more important sector of the
economy.”); Sealy, 388 U.S. at 355 (finding horizontal ancillary restraints unlawful because “their
anticompetitive nature and effect are so apparent and so serious that the courts will not pause to assess them
in light of the rule of reason”).
203
See Radiant Burners, Inc. v. Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company, 364 U.S. 365 (1961)
(declaring gas companies’ collective refusal to deal with customers of burner manufacturer unlawful per se);
Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U.S. 209 (1959) (collective refusal by appliance

69
competitive market,”204 “interfere[d] with the natural flow of commerce,”205 and had “by [their]

‘nature’ and ‘character,’ a monopolistic tendency.”206 Horizontal price fixing that reduced prices was

automatically unlawful, because it “crippled the freedom of traders to sell in accordance with their

independent judgment.”207

Courts did not reserve this hostility for agreements among rivals, but exhibited equal

disdain for vertical arrangements. Here again, non-standard agreements that reduced some form of

rivalry were deemed without redeeming virtue and thus “anticompetitive” attempts to obtain or

exercise market power. While not unreasonable per se, vertical mergers between a manufacturer and

distributor were unlawful under the Clayton Act if the distributor possessed a non-trivial share of the

market, with the result that the transaction resulted in a “foreclosure of a share of the market

otherwise open to competitors.”208 Exclusive dealing contracts that bound a non-trivial number of

dealers were unlawful, regardless of their benefits, because they placed a “potential clog on

manufacturers to deal with single retailer in San Francisco unlawful per se despite absence of any showing
of public harm); Fashion Orignators Guild v. FTC, 312 U.S. 457 (1940).
204
Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 213; id. at 211 (Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason voids contracts that
“interfered with the ‘nature flow’ of an appreciable amount of interstate commerce”) quoting Standard Oil,
221 U.S. at 57, 61.
205
Radiant Burners, 364 U.S. at 660, quoting Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 213.
206
Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 213, quoting Standard Oil.
207
Kiefer-Stewart v. Joseph Seagram & Sons, 340 U.S. 211, 213 (1951).
208
See Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 327-334 (1962) (finding vertical merger
unlawful where transaction would “foreclose” other manufacturers from 2-3% of the nation’s shoe stores);
A.G. Spaulding & Bros., Inc., 56 F.T.C. 1125, 1168-69 (1960) (declaring vertical merger unlawful without
regard to share of market actually foreclosed); Kennecot Copper Corp. v. United States, 231 F. Supp. 95,
104-105 (S.D. N. Y. 1964) (finding that merger between copper producer and one of ten manufacturers of
“paper insulated copper wire” lessened competition by foreclosing other manufacturers from selling copper
to the purchased firm).

70
competition”209 took “away freedom of purchasers to buy in an open market,” and were thus

“anticompetitive.”210 Arrangements whereby a manufacturer encouraged dealers to purchase and

promote the products of a particular supplier were equally problematic, even though they were not

de jure or de facto exclusionary. Such arrangements precluded dealers from making purchasing

decisions “solely on the basis of competitive merit” because they ensured that “non-sponsored brands

do not compete on even terms of price and quality competition.”211 Such arrangements “impaired

competition”212 and “adversely affected” the “operation of the competitive market.”213 They were

not normal competitive practices, but instead involved the “utilization of economic power in one

market to curtail competition in another,”214 and the “use of economic power as a partial substitute

209
Standard Oil of California v. United States, 337 U.S. 293 (1949) (exclusive dealing contracts
necessarily “substantially lessen[ed] competition” where manufacturer bound 6.7% of region’s dealers);
United States v. Richfield Oil Corp., 99 F. Supp. 280 (S.D. Cal. 1951), aff’d. 343 U.S. 922 (1952) (finding
unlawful exclusive dealing contract that bound 3% of region’s dealers).
210
See F.T.C. v. Brown Shoe, 384 U.S. 316, 320, 321 (1966) (finding that such an agreement
involving 1% of the nation’s shoe retailers offends the “central policy of the Sherman Act” and thus
constitutes an “unfair trade practice” in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act). See also Dictograph Products
v. FTC, 217 F.2d 821, 828 (2d Cir. 1954) (“It is the policy of the Congress that [the defendant’s]
merchandise must stand on its own feet in the open market . . . without the competitive advantage to be
obtained by the use of prohibited exclusionary agreements.”).
211
See F.T.C. v. Texaco, 393 U.S. 223, 230 (1968).
212
See Atlantic Refining Co. v. F.T.C., 381 U.S. 357, 370 (1965).
213
See Texaco, 393 U.S. at 230. See also In re Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., et al., 58 F.T.C. 371,
413 (1961) (banning supplier’s agreement to pay distributor large commissions because, under such an
arrangement, “the success of the one group is not due to the fact that its members are more able competitors,
nor because they offer superior products and services, and the failure of the other group is not traceable
solely to the possible inferiority of their products and services. The one outstanding fact is that [the
defendant] has been successful . . . because of the sales commission system and not because of either their
own competitive abilities or because of the competitive advantages of their products.”).
214
See Atlantic Refining Co., 381 U.S. at 369; id. at 376 (finding “little point” for the arrangement
“were it not for [defendants’] ability to exert power over their wholesalers and dealers”). See also Texaco,
393 U.S. at 228-29 (finding that, despite lack of facts showing actual coercion “Texaco’s dominant economic

71
for competitive merit.”215 Even if such arrangements produced benefits, they constituted “unfair

methods of competition” whenever they involved a not insubstantial amount of commerce.216

Other vertical arrangements suffered a similar fate, and for similar reasons. Thus,

tying contracts “den[ied] competitors free access to the market . . . because of the [seller’s] power

or leverage” and thus curbed “competition on the merits with respect to the tied product.”217 Sellers

could invariably achieve any benefits produced by such contracts through less restrictive means.218

So, for instance, a seller that wished to protect the goodwill of the tying product by ensuring that

purchasers used tied products of sufficient quality could provide information to consumers about the

merits of the tied product or “even” adopt contractual specifications governing the quality of

compliments the consumer could purchase.219 Such less restrictive alternatives were consistent with

power was used in a manner which tended to foreclose competition in the marketing of [tires, batteries and
accessories]”).
215
Texaco, 393 U.S. at 230.
216
See Atlantic Refining, 381 U.S. at 371 (conceding that such contracts “may well provide Atlantic
with an economical method of assuring efficient product distribution among its dealers”); id. (finding “it
unnecessary to embark upon a full-scale economic analysis of competitive effect . . . [because] the
Commission found that a not insubstantial portion of commerce is affected.”); Texaco, 393 U.S. at 230 (“The
Commission is not required to show that a practice it condemns has totally eliminated competition in the
relevant market. It is enough that the Commission found that the practice in question unfairly burdened a
not insubstantial volume of commerce.”).
217
See Fortner Enterprises v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U.S. 495, 498 (1969) (quoting Northern
Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1958)); United States v. Loew’s, Inc. 371 U.S. 38, 44-46
(1963); id. at 48 (describing adverse effects of contracts in question on “free competition”). See also Meese,
Tying Meets the New Institutional Economics, 146 U. PENN . L. REV . at 13-16 (describing traditional view
that tying contracts are the result of “coercive forcing”).
218
See Fortner Enterprises, 394 U.S. at 503 (“tying arrangements generally serve no legitimate
business purpose that cannot be achieved in some less restrictive way.”); Standard Oil, 337 U.S. at 306
(same).
219
See Times Picayune Co. v. United States, 345 U.S. 594, 605 (1953) (claiming that “any intrinsic
superiority of the ‘tied’ product would convince freely choosing buyers to select it over others, anyway”);

72
(price theoretic) “competition.”220 Firms that sought tying contracts, on the other hand, were

exercising market power to “force” purchasers to take a tied product of lower quality, higher price,

or both.221 Thus, such agreements “serve[d] hardly any purpose beyond the suppression of

competition.”222

Standard Oil, 337 U.S. at 306; International Salt Co. v. United states, 332 U.S. 392, 397-98 (1948) (seller
may not protect goodwill of tying product by resorting to “disguised restraints of free competition”); IBM
v. United States, 298 U.S. 131, 138-39 (1936) (seller could protect goodwill by “proclaiming the virtues of
its own cards or warning against the danger of using in its machines, cards which do not conform to the
necessary specifications, or . . . make[ ] its leases conditional upon the use of cards which conform to
them.”); Siegel v. Chicken Delight, Inc. 448 F.2d 43, 51-52 (9th Cir. 1971) (same). See Meese, Tying Meets
the New Institutional Economics, 146 U. PENN . L. REV . at 71-84 (describing traditional view that numerous
less restrictive alternatives could achieve legitimate objectives of tying contracts).
220

“The economic merit in tying rivets to machines and an economic justification for such tying
will not suffice to prevent the operation of the statute. The Clayton Act is intended to
preserve competitive conditions. The open market not the court should be the forum for the
presentation of claims as to the merits of tied articles. The lessees are quite capable of
judging for themselves in an atmosphere of competition whether or not the rivets of one
manufacturer will work in the machines of another.”

Judson L. Thompson MFG. Co. v. F.T.C., 150 F.2d 952, 958 (1st Cir. 1945) (emphases added). Cf. nn. ____,
supra and accompanying text (describing assumptions by price theorists that firms could costlessly convey
information and that purchasers would readily absorb such information).
221
See Fortner, 394 U.S. at 498; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1958).
See also KAYSEN & TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, 157 (“Tying implies some market power on the part of the
seller practicing it.”).
222
See Fortner Enterprises, 394 U.S. at 498 (quoting Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356
U.S. 1, 5-6 (1958)).
To be sure, courts purported to qualify the per se rule with a requirement that plaintiffs demonstrate
the seller’s economic power in the market for the tying product. See Northern Pacific R. Co., 356 U.S. at
6-7. Still, courts found such power so readily as to render this requirement barely relevant. So, for instance,
courts held that sellers had sufficient economic power whenever they possessed a product with “unique
attributes” that was “attractive to consumers,” i.e., whenever the market in question was characterized by
product differentiation. See United States v. Loew’s, Inc., 371 U.S. 38, 45 (1963); id. at 46-48 (possession
of a copyright creates presumption of economic power); Chicken Delight, 448 F.2d at 49-50. Indeed, as
suggested in the text, courts even went so far as to find that the existence of such contracts itself implied the
“power” to impose them. See Fortner, 394 U.S. at 504; Loew’s, Inc., 371 U.S. at 49 (fact of market
foreclosure confirmed presumption that copyright conferred economic power); Northern Pacific R. Co., 356
U.S. at 8 (“the very existence of this host of tying arrangements is itself compelling evidence of the
defendant’s great power”). Cf. id. at 6-7 (no “economic power” would be present if “one of a dozen food

73
 Courts even went so far as to ban agreements limiting rivalry between a

manufacturer’s own dealers in the sale of its product. Resale price maintenance and exclusive

territories were unlawful per se, as were restrictions on the identity of customers to whom dealers

could resell.223 Like franchising, such arrangements were “unusual,” “inconsistent with the free-

market principle embodied in the Sherman Act,”224 and “so obviously destructive of competition that

their mere existence [was] enough” to justify condemnation.225 Exceptions were made only for

agreements of consignment, under which the manufacturer retained title to its product and thus

realized efficiencies “within” its own boundaries.226 Indeed, courts even banned contractual

arrangements that assured consumers lower prices, i.e., maximum resale price maintenance. Such

vertical price ceilings, the Court said, interfered with “the forces of a competitive market” crippled

the ability of dealers “to compete,” and produced no corresponding benefits.227 Here again, the Court

equated “competition” with technological rivalry, unconstrained by non-standard contracts, even if

such “competition” produced prices higher than those set by the challenged contract.

stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar”). In short, any departure
from perfect competition (including the very existence of tying contracts) was deemed evidence of economic
power.
223
See United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U.S. 365 (1967).
224
United States v. General Motors, 384 U.S. 127, 145-48 (1966).
225
Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 379; General Motors, 384 U.S. at 146.
226
See Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 379-82 (recognizing that restrictions governing consignment sales may
be reasonable methods of competition with other manufacturers). Cf. Simpson v. Union Oil, 377 U.S. 13
(1964). See Comanor, Vertical Restrictions on Territories and Customers, 81 HARV . L. REV . at 1436
(contending that contractual integration cannot produce efficiencies). See also nn. ____, infra and
accompanying text (describing endorsement of similar economic reasoning by the United States).
227
Albrecht, 390 U.S. at 152-53.

74
 The Court did not pursue this vision of competition unilaterally, but instead received

help and encouragement from expert enforcement agencies, viz, the Department of Justice and the

Federal Trade Commission. In administrative decisions and briefs filed with the Court, these

agencies repeatedly embraced the assumptions of price theory and the concomitant account of

“competition” that these assumptions implied.228 If exclusive dealing produced cognizable benefits,

the government said, dealers would choose such a course “voluntarily,” that is, without any

contractual requirement.229 Thus, contracts requiring such exclusivity “suppressed competition.”230

228
At least some enforcement officials were aware of their influence on generalist courts and resolved
only to bring those cases that rested upon what they believed to be sound legal and economic propositions:

“It is the duty of the Department of Justice, not to bring a case simply on the basis that it
thinks it can win, but to bring only those cases that it thinks it should win. It is our duty to
do the best we can in determining appropriate interpretations of the law, and in assisting the
courts in creating a rational body of antitrust law by seeking to win cases only on the basis
of legal propositions which the Government believes to be sound, on the basis of the best
thought it can bring to bear. I believe that it is important that the Government accept this
obligation with particular seriousness when it brings antitrust cases. Because antitrust
problems are typically technical and complex, many courts, whether rightly or wrongly, tend
to rely to a greater extent than usual upon the Government’s presentation of its case. This
tendency is reinforced by the fact that many issues of antitrust law are presented to the
courts in cases involving the FTC—cases in which the courts tend to defer to the judgment
of an administrative agency. Thus the Department of Justice must refrain from arguing
cases upon dubious legal grounds, even though, by exercising this restraint, it loses cases
that might otherwise be won.”

See Donald Turner, Address To The American Bar Association, 10 ANTITRUST BULL . 685, 686 (1965)
(emphasis in original). Thus, the enforcement agencies shared a significant portion of the responsibility for
the dominance of price theory’s model of competition during this period.
229
In FTC v. Brown Shoe Co., the Solicitor General, head of the Antitrust Division, and FTC urged
the Court to void exclusive dealing contracts because:

“[E]ven if it were supposed that complete line concentration was the most efficient
approach, one would expect that retailers would be eager to achieve the attendant economies
and would not have to be held to the line by contractual agreement. As the Commission
concluded, ‘[w]hile line concentration itself may or may not be economically justifiable,
there is no economic justification for making the adherence to this doctrine the subject of
agreement between buyer and seller and enforcing the agreement to the latter’s advantage’
(citation omitted). Independent shoe dealers do not need restrictions on their freedom of

75
According to the Department of Justice, exclusive territories, location clauses and customer

restrictions produced no benefits, because: 1) distribution efficiencies could only be realized within

the boundaries of the firm231 or, at any rate, 2) through less restrictive alternatives.232 Thus, such

arrangements had no purpose except to “restrict competition among parties who would otherwise

compete” and overrode “the independent allocations [of sales effort] which would be made by

individual firms in responses to the forces in a free market.”233 The Federal Trade Commission

choice in order to achieve efficiency.”

Brief for the United States at 29-30, FTC v. Brown Shoe Co., 384 U.S. 316 (1966) (No. 118). See also n.
____, supra and accompanying text (describing identical assumption by price theorists).
230
See Brief for the United States in Brown Shoe Co., at 30.
231
In a brief coauthored by Donald Turner and Richard Posner, the United States argued:

“[A] rule that treats manufacturers who assume the distribution function themselves more
leniently than those who impose restraints on independent distributors merely reflects the
fact that, although integration in distribution may sometimes benefit the economy by leading
to cost savings, agreements to maintain resale prices or to impose territorial restrictions of
unlimited duration or outlet limitations of the type involved here have never been shown to
produce comparable economies.”

Brief for the United States at 50, United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U.S. 365 (1967) (No. 25).
232
See Brief of the United States in White Motor Co. v. United States, 372 U.S. 253 (1963), at 25-26.
See also Donald Turner, The Definition of Agreement Under the Sherman Act: Conscious Parallelism and
Refusals to Deal, 75 HARV . L. REV . 655, 699 (1962) (arguing that legitimate objectives of exclusive
territories could be achieved through “less restrictive alternatives such as a clause assigning each dealer a
territory of primary responsibility which he agrees to use his best efforts to develop.”). The endorsement
of so-called “best efforts” clauses is of course an example of the price-theoretic assumption that judicial
interpretation and enforcement of contracts is costless. See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text
(explaining that price theory adopted this assumption).
233
See Brief for the United States in White Motor Co., at 21, 25. See also id. at 24 (“The policy of
the Sherman Act is that the proportion of time, money, and effort to be devoted to interbrand rather than
intrabrand competition and to each of the inducements offered by sellers to buyers, is to be determined by
the free decisions of individual sellers, not by agreements between a manufacturer and its purchasers.”); id.
at 22 (“The function of the agreement, thus described, is to restrain competition — the very thing the
Sherman Act forbids — and thus the argument stands as its own condemnation. The policy of the Sherman
Act does not prefer one form of competition to another. The Act is based on the philosophy that the most

76
agreed, stating that such arrangements prevented “competitive considerations . . . from playing their

normal part in distributor and dealer relationships,” and marked a “distortion of natural patterns of

distribution.”234 Numerous antitrust scholars agreed with these assessments.235

Exclusive territories ancillary to the formation of a joint venture met similar disdain.

Although such arrangements could perhaps encourage local advertising, such advertising was “from

the standpoint of the policy of the antitrust laws . . . at best, a mixed blessing.”236 At any rate, there

efficient distribution of trucks, as of any other product, will result from intra-brand competition between
sellers of one brand.”).
234
See In re Sandura, 61 FTC 756, 815-16. Id. at 814 (referring to the “competitive distortions
engendered by respondent’s artificial distribution structure”).
235
For instance, responding to the argument that exclusive territories or location clauses were
legitimate methods of assuring adequate dealer promotion, Professor Lawrence Sullivan opined:

“The most comprehensive response to arguments like this is that [intrabrand] competition
should be the device which determines what the public really needs or wants. Take the
claim that display facilities are needed. If the public prefers expensive shopping amenities
to lower prices, it will pay the higher prices to have greater amenities. . . .This is what
should happen. . . .The contrary view assumes that the manufacturer knows better than the
market how dealers ought to be deployed and what services and facilities they should offer
in order to maximize output. But this argument, like the comparable one in favor or resale
price maintenance, assumes that the manufacturer will always know what is best and that
his administered judgment about the ideal deployment of outlets across the nation will be
more efficient than the deployment achieved through the myriad individual decisions by
dealers investing in the distribution process. This assumption undercuts the primary policy
commitment which underlies the whole of antitrust, the conviction that market decisions are
likely to be more sensitive, flexible and accurate gauges of the way resources should be
deployed than any monolithic, administered decision.”

LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, ANTITRUST , 414-16 (1977). Like price theorists, then, Professor Sullivan drew a
distinction between “competition” and “the market,” on the one hand, and non-standard contracts (the
manufacturer’s “monolithic, administered decision”) on the other. The later simply did not constitute
“competition.” See also id. at 15-17 (lauding various price-theoretic industrial organization textbooks as
proper basis for antitrust economics).
236
See Brief For The United States in United States v. Seally, Inc., 388 U.S. 350 (1967) (No. 9), 19.
See also Brief For The United States in United States v. Topco, 405 U.S. 596 (1972) (No. 70-82) 28 (arguing
that brand names necessarily “insulate [a product] to some degree, from competition”) (citing JOE BAIN ,
BARRIERS TO NEW COMPETITION , 114-15).

77
were less restrictive methods of achieving such promotion, and exclusive territories would result in

a “severe diminution in the amount and vigor of competition in the industry.”237 Indeed, the United

States went so far as to compare such restrictions (unfavorably) to governmental regulation of

market entry, the latter of which was superior because administered by “disinterested” regulators.238

The Court’s hostility toward any and all contracts that limited “competition” as it

defined it may seem inconsistent with Standard Oil’s normative conclusion that the Sherman Act

only bans “undue” restraints on “competition.”239 Any apparent inconsistency is entirely illusory,

however, and close analysis reveals that the Court’s embrace of price theory was entirely consistent

with Standard Oil’s consumer-driven approach. Standard Oil did not equate “competition” with

any formal state of affairs or technological practices leading to that state and thus did not approve

any restraints that are “anticompetitive” in a price-theoretic sense.240 Instead, as noted earlier, that

decision equated competition with rivalry, and recognized that some (but not all) restraints on such

“competition” could enhance consumer welfare.241

For its part, the price-theoretic Court did not “explode the economy into individual

atoms,” but like Standard Oil instead validated or signaled approval of some restrictions on rivalry

237
See Brief For The United States in Seally, at 19; see also Brief in Reply For The United States in
Topco, at 3 (such restrictions are unlawful per se because “the theory of the Sherman Act is that the free
forces of the marketplace and not agreements among competitors, are to determine the allocation of
business.”).
238
See Brief For The United States in Topco, at 26.
239
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
240
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (explaining that Standard Oil equated “competition”
with rivalry).
241
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text.

78
that appeared to produce technological efficiencies “within” firms.242 For instance, while the Court

banned outright limits on how and where a dealer could resell a product, it approved identical limits

on dealers that took the form of consignment agreements.243 Such contractual arrangements, which

controlled dealers so long as title remained “within” the manufacturer, allowed firms some control

over their distribution network and thus advanced price-theoretic competition.244 Moreover, while

the Court was generally hostile to horizontal and vertical mergers during this period, it repeatedly

signaled its approval of transactions that eliminated rivalry between smaller firms if necessary to

produce (technological) economies of scale and thereby create a more effective competitor.245 Like

consignment agreements, such transactions restrained “competition” in some sense, by eliminating

rivalry that might otherwise take place. Nonetheless, the Court said, such restrictions advanced

overall competition as understood by price theorists, and thus were not “undue” restrictions of

competition of the sort condemned by Standard Oil.246

242
Cf. Northern Securities, 193 U.S. at 411 (Holmes, J. dissenting).
243
See Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 377-82.
244
See Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 379-81; id. at 382 (sustaining district court’s finding that the “net effect”
[of a consignment arrangement] is to preserve and not to damage competition in the bicycle market”).
245
See Vons Grocery, 384 U.S. at 277 (suggesting that a merger could be “defended on the ground
that . . . the two had to merge to save themselves from destruction by some larger and more powerful
competitor”); United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U.S. 321, 370-71 (1963) (same); Brown Shoe
Co., 370 U.S. at 319-20 (stating that merger between small firms could create a more effective competitor
against dominant firms and thus result in a “stimulation to competition”).
246
See nn. _____, supra and accompanying text (Standard Oil forbids only undue limits on
competition). See also Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U.S. at 367 (“The test of a competitive market is
not only whether small competitors flourish but also whether consumers are well served.”).

79
 Even those decisions of this era that voided non-standard contracts often invoked

Standard Oil, purporting at least to ban only those restraints that unreasonably restrained trade.247

However, price theory’s conclusion that non-standard contracts produced no cognizable benefits led

the Court to conclude that such agreements were not normal, usual, or ordinary practices that

advanced competition and trade, but were instead “unusual” methods that reflected the exercise of

or attempt to acquire market power and thus threatened the “evil consequences” of monopoly.248

Because such restraints were not consistent with a “competitive” market, they restrained trade unduly

and were thus banned.249 While the Court voided some restraints that the Standard Oil Court may

have approved, it did not reject the decision’s normative premise but instead applied that premise

in light of new theory, just as Standard Oil suggested.250

247
See, e.g., Topco, 405 U.S. at 606-607; Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 374 (citing Standard Oil for the
proposition that the Court must determine “whether the restraint is ‘reasonable’ in the special sense in which
§ 1 of the Sherman Act must be read for purposes of this inquiry”); Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 211 (describing
Standard Oil as “a landmark opinion” that “read § 1 to prohibit . . . undue restraints of trade”); Northern
Pacific R. Co., 356 U.S. at 5 (“the courts have construed [Section 1] as precluding only those contracts or
combinations which ‘unreasonably’ restrain competition”) (citing Standard Oil). It should be noted that
many decisions that failed to cite Standard Oil relied upon Northern Pac. R. Co.’s articulation of the per se
rule. See, e.g., General Motors, 384 U.S. at 145-46.
248
See Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 379 (enforcement of vertical restraints “would sanction franchising and
confinement of distribution as the ordinary instead of the unusual method”); Klor’s, Inc., 359 U.S. at 213
(group boycot per se unlawful because it had a “monopolistic tendency”); id. at 211 (Standard Oil banned
contracts with a “monopolistic tendency”) quoting Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 57.
249
See, e.g., Klor’s, 359 U.S. at 213 (group boycott “interferes with the natural flow of interstate
commerce”). Cf. Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 61 (Sherman Act forbids contracts that produce an “undue
restraint on the course of trade”); id. at 58 (American common law treated as illegal contracts that had the
effect of restraining the “free flow of trade”).
250
See nn. ____, supra (showing that Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason necessarily requires courts to
apply evolving economic theory).

80
 To be sure, the vision of “competition” embraced by the Court served social and

political goals aside from the furtherance of economic efficiency.251 In particular, decisions voiding

non-standard contracts appeared to enhance the “freedom” of dealers and others bound by such

agreements.252 Still, as a rhetorical matter at least, the Court embraced its version of “competition”

primarily because of its economic benefits.253 In language that could have come from a textbook on

industrial organization, the Court insisted that its version of competition between firms unrestrained

by non-standard contracts would produce competitive markets and thus optimal (“competitive”)

prices, output and quality, maximizing the economic welfare of society and consumers.254 Any

furtherance of non-economic values was incidental to “competition’s” tendency to enhance economic

welfare.

251
See Meese, Farewell To The Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 466-68 (describing influence of
“Populist” social and political concerns on antitrust doctrine during this period). See also, e.g., TOPCO, 405
U.S. at 610-11 (characterizing the Sherman Act as a “Magna Carta of Free Enterprise” that guarantees
individual traders the “right” to be free of voluntary contractual restrictions on competition); Brown Shoe
Co., 370 U.S. at 344 (claiming that Congress meant Clayton Act to further decentralization of economic
power even at the expense of higher prices).
252
See Meese, Price Theory And Vertical Restraints: A Misunderstood Relation, 45 U.C.L.A. L. Rev.
at 176-83 (describing so-called “populist” approach to vertical restraints that seeks to enhance the “freedom”
of dealers and others from such contracts). But see id. at 184-95 (arguing that non-standard agreements
actually enhance freedom).
253
See Donald I. Baker & William Blumenthal, Ideological Cycles and Unstable Antitrust Rules, 31
ANTITRUST BULL . 323, 330 (1986) (arguing that during this period, “[t]he precise objective of antitrust policy
was unimportant, for populist and economic approaches yielded consistent results”). Other scholars have
been less charitable, asserting that the Court used economic theory as a fig leaf, to justify predetermined
results. See Alan J. Meese, Economic Theory, Trader Freedom, and Consumer Welfare: State Oil v. Khan
and the Continuing Incoherence of Antitrust Doctrine, 84 CORNELL L. REV . 763, 768 (1999); Thomas E.
Kauper, The Warren Court and the Antitrust Laws: Of Economics, Populism, and Cynicism, 67 MICH. L.
REV . 325, 330 (1968) (arguing that the Warren Court “used economic doctrine to support decisions arrived
at upon other grounds”); Frederick M. Rowe, The Decline of Antitrust and the Delusion of Models: The
Faustian Pact of Law and Economics, 72 GEO . L. J. 1511, 1524-27, (1984) (same).
254
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (describing price theory’s conclusion that
“competitive” markets produce optimal allocation of resources, prices, output and quality).

81
 “The Sherman Act was designed to be a comprehensive charter of
economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition
as the rule of trade. It rests on the premise that the unrestrained
interaction of competitive forces will yield the best allocation of our
economic resources, the lowest prices, the highest quality and the
greatest material progress, while at the same time providing an
environment conducive to the preservation of our democratic political
and social institutions.”255

By defining “competition” so narrowly, to exclude non-standard contracts as “monopolistic,” the

Court was able to justify expansive interference in the economy, under the guise of correcting

“market failure.”256 So long as the dominant economic paradigm defined “competition” to exclude

such agreements, the Court could employ economic theory as a fig leaf, justifying a pursuit of social

values by invoking efficiency concerns.257

255
See Northern Pacific R. Co., 356 U.S. at 4 (emphases added). See also Times-Picayune Co., 345
U.S. at 605 (“Tying arrangements, we may readily agree, flout the Sherman Act’s policy that competition
rule the marts of trade. Basic to the faith that a free economy best promotes the public weal is that goods
must stand the cold test of competition; that the public, acting through the market’s impersonal judgment,
shall allocate the Nation’s resources and thus direct the course its economic development will take.”). The
United States agreed:

“The policy of the Sherman Act is that the most efficient use of resources and the most
desirable distribution of economic power results from the separately made choices of buyers
and sellers in a competitive marketplace.”

Brief for the United States in White Motor Co., at 15.

256
See MACHOVEC , PERFECT COMPETITION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMICS , at 194-200
(arguing that application of perfect competition competition model justified expanded antitrust intervention).
See also id. at 52-95 (exploring link between perfect competition model and calls for central planning to
achieve “perfect” result); Carl J. Dahlman, The Problem of Externality, 22 J. L. & Econ. 141 (1979) (arguing
that many economists improperly assume that any departure from perfect competition justifies regulatory
intervention). See generally Hayek, Meaning Of Competition, at 100 (arguing that the unrealistic definition
of “competition” embraced by many economists creates a “standard of perfection as something desirable to
be aimed at” and that in the real world this standard should be “wholly irrelevant”).
257
See Meese, Economic Theory, Trader Freedom, and Consumer Welfare, 84 CORN . L. REV . at 789-
94 (arguing that changes in economic theory have made it more clear that protection of “trader freedom”
entails an economic cost and thus caused the Supreme Court to pursue consumer welfare exclusively).

82
 D. The Collapse Of Price Theory And A New Definition Of “Competition:”

Price theory did not maintain its monopoly on industrial organization and antitrust

policy indefinitely. Just as rules of per se illegality had reached their greatest scope, a competitor

emerged in the form of transaction cost economics. TCE embraced price theory’s normative

premise, seeking to determine whether practices are “competitive” in the sense of furthering

economic welfare. In so doing, however, TCE challenged the root assumption of price theory’s

descriptive model of competition, namely, that technological factors gave rise to the existence of

firms and determined the proper boundary between “the firm” and “the market.” While technological

considerations might explain why two stages of a production process should take place in close

physical proximity, they could not explain why a single owner should coordinate both stages of the

process.258 In particular, proponents of TCE’s new paradigm emphasized that reliance upon market

contracting to perform a particular economic function involves a unique cost, namely, the cost of

258
Consider what Professor Bain called the “classic case” of technological benefits purportedly
produced by vertical integration: the unification “of iron-making and steel-making to effect a saving in fuel
costs by eliminating a reheating of the iron before it is fed into the steel furnace.” See BAIN , INDUSTRIAL
ORGANIZATION , at 381; DIRLAM AND KAHN , FAIR COMPETITION , at 23 (employing this same example);
KAYSEN AND TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 120 (giving “integrated steel plant” as example of technical
economies produced by vertical integration which “leads to an alteration of the structure of the plant as well
as the firm.”) (emphasis added). As Professor Williamson has pointed out, such considerations may well
explain why two processes are located in close proximity. They do not, however, explain why both processes
fall under common ownership. See Oliver Williamson, The Vertical Integration of Production: Market
Failure Considerations, 61 Amer. Econ. Rev. 112 (1971) (discussing traditional view that vertical integration
produces economies through “technical complementarity in flow process operations’); id. at 116-117
(arguing that “flow process economies between otherwise separable stages of production [are] really a special
case of the contractual incompleteness argument. . . . The advantages of integration thus are not that
technological (flow process) economies are unavailable to nonintegrated firms, but that integration
harmonizes interests (or reconciles differences, often by fiat) and permits an efficient (adaptive, sequential)
decision process to be utilized.”).

83
transacting, not incurred when a firm performs an activity itself.259 The choice between “the firm”

and “the market,” then, depends at least in part upon the transaction costs of using the latter, costs

that are unrelated to production technology.260

The antiseptic models of price theory — what Professor Coase called “blackboard

economics” — had ignored these costs, assuming, for instance, that bargaining and information costs

did not exist, and that market transactions consisted simply of costless standard contracts readily

enforceable by the courts.261 By contrast, practitioners of transaction cost economics emphasized

that the “real world” often differed substantially from the state of the world assumed by price theory,

thus suggesting that price theory’s methodology for evaluating the cause and consequence of vertical

integration was incomplete.262 Most importantly, attention to the “real world” revealed transaction

259
See R. H. Coase, The Nature of the Firm, 4 ECONOMICA (n. s.) 386, 390 (1937) (“The main reason
why it is profitable to establish a firm would seem to be that there is a cost of using the price mechanism.”).
260
Coase, The Firm, The Market, And The Law, at 7 (“The limit to the size of the firm is set where
its costs of organizing a transaction become equal to the cost of carrying it out through the market.”);
Williamson, Vertical Integration of Production, 61 AMER . ECON . at passim; Coase, Nature of the Firm, 4
ECONOMICA at 390-91.
261
See nn. ____, supra, and accompanying text.
262
See Langlois, The New Institutional Economics at 13-14. Here again Professor Coase was
prophetic. Speaking of economists’ general approach to problems of regulating industry, he said:

“Contemplation of an optimal system may suggest ways of improving the system, it may
provide techniques of analysis that would otherwise have been missed, and, in certain
special cases, it may go far to providing a solution. But in general its influence has been
pernicious. It has directed economists’ attention away from the main question, which is how
alternative arrangements will actually work in practice. It has led economists to derive
conclusions for economic policy from a study of an abstract model of a market situation.
It is no accident that in the literature (and for that matter in Professor Caves’s paper) we find
a category “market failure” but no category “government failure.” Until we realize that we
are choosing between social arrangements which are all more or less failures, we are not
likely to make much headway.”

See Ronald H. Coase, The Regulated Industries: Discussion, 54 AMER . ECON . REV . 194, 195 (1964). See

84
costs in abundance. Firms must identify trading partners and determine the price and quality of the

product or service offered.263 They must negotiate and memorialize agreements governing the

transaction, attempting to anticipate and provide for each and every contingency that might occur

over a long-term transaction, including the possibility that one or both parties might behave

opportunistically, that is, take advantage of the other party so as to reallocate to itself a greater

portion of the benefits of the relationship than the parties initially anticipated.264 While parties could,

theoretically provide for all contingencies by relying upon implicit or explicit requirements of “good

faith,” the costs of enforcing such provisions are very real, and courts are blunt instruments for

interpreting and adjusting commercial relationships.265

This new transaction cost economics provided an entirely new lens through which

to examine the causes and consequences of vertical integration. Even if potential trading partners

possessed superior technology and thus lower production costs, reliance upon such partners i.e., the

market, to perform a particular function might be ill-advised, given the cost of transacting. Put more

also Hayek, The Meaning of Competition, at 92 (arguing that the price-theoretic definition of competition
“has little claim to be called ‘competition’ at all” and that “its conclusions are of little use as guides to
policy.”).
263
See Carl Dahlman, The Problem of Externality, 22 J. L. & ECON . 141, 144-47 (1979) (defining
transaction costs). See also Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 6 (“In order to carry out a market
transaction it is necessary to discover who it is that one wishes to deal with, to inform people that one wishes
to deal and on what terms, to conduct negotiations leading up to a bargain, to draw up a contract, to undertake
the inspection needed to make sure that the terms of the contract are being observed, and so on.”) (quoting
Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J. L. & ECON . at 15).
264
WILLIAMSON , ECON OM IC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at 47-52 (defining opportunism); id. at
32 (contending that, in the real world, parties must contend with possibility of opportunism when negotiating
contracts); Williamson, Vertical Integration of Production, 61 AMER . ECON . REV . 115-17.
265
WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS , at 32 (“Since the efficacy of court ordering is
problematic, contract execution falls heavily on the institutions of private ordering.”); id. at 68-84 (describing
shortcomings of classical contract law as a vehicle for policing opportunism).

85
bluntly, price theory’s “market” — a series of spot transactions governed by standard contracts —

often failed to provide the cheapest way of coordinating the use of a given technology.266 As a result,

practitioners of transaction cost economics came to presume that complete vertical integration is an

attempt to avoid or overcome such market failures, thus assuring the best possible allocation of

resources in an imperfect world.267 Integration that economists and courts once treated as attempts

to “leverage” market power to gain strategic advantage over rivals were now seen by many as

attempts to overcome market failure and enhance social welfare, without creating or relying upon

market power.268

Transaction cost economics did more than explain many instances of complete

vertical integration — it also offered insights into the rationale of partial integration accomplished

solely by contract. Indeed, TCE suggested that “the firm” is simply a shorthand description of a

particular set of contractual relationships, i.e., “a nexus of contracts.”269 Adoption of this particular

266
See OLIVER WILLIAMSON , MARKETS AND HIERARCHIES, 8-10, 20-21 (1975).
267
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at 103-130 (arguing that “vertical integration . . . is
more consistent with transaction cost economizing than with the leading alternatives”); WILLIAMSON ,
MARKETS AND HIERARCHIES, at 20 (stating that “a presumption of market failure is warranted where it is
observed that transactions are shifted out of a market and into a firm”); Williamson, Delimiting Antitrust,
76 GEO . L. J. 271, 273 (“The older story of the firm as production function gradually made way (or gave way)
to a theory of the firm in which express allowance was made for transaction costs. Accordingly, the firm was
thereafter described as a governance structure . . . technology was no longer determinative, and the
boundaries of the firm (what to make, what to buy, how to trade, etc.) now needed to be derived.”); Coase,
The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 5-7.
268
See Coase, Industrial Organization: Proposal for Research, at 67-68 (asserting that non-standard
contracts and other practices inexplicable under price theory are often necessary for “bringing about a
competitive situation”); cf. Hayek, Meaning of Competition, at 96 (suggesting that many activities
inconsistent with the perfect competition model are in fact methods of achieving a more “competitive”
result).
269
See Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, Production, Information Costs, And Economic
Organization, 62 Amer. Econ. Rev. 777 (1972). See also Scott E. Masten, A Legal Basis For The Firm, 4
J. L. Econ. & Org. 181, 194-95 (1988) (observing that transactors could replicate by contract the various

86
set of contractual arrangements (complete vertical integration) can generate its own costs, and the

“firm” and “the (spot) market” are not the only means of conducting economic activity. 270 There are

an infinite variety of (non-standard) arrangements “in between,” arrangements for which price theory

had produced no benign explanation.271 Relying upon a revised paradigm based upon transaction

cost reasoning, economists and others offered new interpretations of old phenomena — non-standard

contracts — the price-theoretic inhospitality tradition had condemned.272 Tying contracts, for

instance, were often beneficial methods of protecting the goodwill of a manufacturer or franchisor

by ensuring that purchasers would choose complements of sufficient quality.273 Vertical restraints

rights and obligations that arise by default within a firm).

270
See Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of
Vertical and Lateral Integration, 94 J. POL . ECON . 691 (1986); WILLIAMSON , MARKETS AND HIERARCHIES,
at 8-9.
271
See Steven Cheung, The Contractual Nature of the Firm, 26 J. L. & ECON . 1, at 19 (1983) (“The
polar cases are complicated by middlemen and subcontractors; agents contract among themselves; and any
type of input may support a variety of contractual arrangements. We surmise that these very complications,
which render ‘the firm’ ambiguous, have arisen from attempts to save transaction costs that were not
avoidable in the polar cases.”); Benjamin Klein, Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, And The
Competitive Contracting Process, 21 J. L. & ECON . 297, 326 (1978) (“[The] primary distinction between
transactions made within a firm and transactions made in the marketplace may be too simplistic. Many long
term contractual relationships . . . blur the line between the market and the firm.”).
272
See Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 6-7 (“The existence of transaction costs will
lead those who wish to trade to engage in practices which bring about a reduction of transaction costs
whenever the loss suffered in other ways from the adoption of those practices is less than the transaction cost
saved. The people one deals with, the type of contract entered, the kind of service supplied, will all be
affected.”) (emphasis added). See also THOMAS KUHN , THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION, 114-17
(1970) (explaining that paradigm shifts cause reinterpretation of previously-observed phenomenon).
273
See Benjamin Klein & Lester F. Saft, The Law and Economics of Franchise Tying Contracts, 28
J. L. & ECON . 345 (1985) (arguing that franchise tying contracts can protect goodwill of the franchise
system); Paul H. Rubin, The Theory of the Firm and the Structure of the Franchise Contract, 21 J. L. &
ECON . 223 (1978). See also Meese, Tying Meets The New Institutional Economics, 146 U. PENN . L. REV .
at 61-94 (employing transaction-cost reasoning to show that tying contracts are often voluntary integration
designed to obviate market failure).

87
on distributors such as exclusive territories or minimum resale price maintenance could encourage

optimal promotional efforts by ensuring that dealers who invested in such promotion received

remuneration for their efforts.274 Maximum resale price maintenance can also enhance a

manufacturer’s goodwill, by preventing opportunistic price gouging by dealers that could undermine

the manufacturer’s reputation.275

Although initially couched as an explanation for vertical restraints, transaction cost

economics suggested new explanations for horizontal agreements as well. The firm itself, of course,

was simply a nexus of contracts between potential competitors.276 Like vertical restraints, horizontal

limits on rivalry by joint venture partners could combat market failure and make the venture a more

effective competitor.277 Price ceilings set by otherwise independent venture partners could protect

consumers and the venture from opportunism.278 Concerted refusals to deal could be salutary

methods of self-help by venture partners enforcing beneficial forms of contractual integration.279

Proponents of a transaction cost approach opined that such non-standard practices were

274
See Robert H. Bork, The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept: Price Fixing and Market
Division, 75 YALE L. J. 373, 429-52 (1966); Lester G. Telser, Why Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade,
3 J. L. & ECON . 86 (1960).
275
See Meese, Price Theory And Vertical Restraints, 45 UCLA L. Rev. at 165-66. See also Frank
H. Easterbrook, Maximum Price Fixing, 48 U. CHI . L. REV . 886, 893-95 (1981) (arguing that joint venturers
can use maximum price fixing to establish collective reputation for low cost pricing).
276
See generally Alchian and Demsetz, Production, Information, And Economic Organization, 62
Amer. Econ. Rev. at passim.
277
See Bork, Price Fixing and Market Division, 75 YALE L. J. at 429-65.
278
See Easterbrook, Maximum Price Fixing, 48 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 893-95.
279
See, e.g., HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 224-27 (describing possible
procompetitive purposes of collective refusals to deal). See also RICHARD A. POSNER , ANTITRUST LAW , 207-
211 (1976) (characterizing boycotts as self-help measures that can often serve beneficial purposes).

88
presumptively efficient attempts to avoid the market failures that would otherwise result from

reliance on standard contracting in an atomistic market.280

Transaction cost economics did more than provide new explanations for a variety of

practices. It also implied an entirely different model of “competition” relevant to application of

Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason and its distinction between “ordinary” and “undue” restraints on

competition or rivalry. Price theory, it will be recalled, equated “competition” with technological

rivalry between autonomous firms, unconstrained by non-standard contracts.281 Such rivalry took

the form of quality improvements and price reductions and, when unconstrained, produced the best

possible allocation of resources. While mergers or internal expansion could enhance such

competition by generating technological efficiencies, contracts that limited rivalry between otherwise

independent firms produced no cognizable benefits. Thus, such agreements were “anticompetitive”

in a price-theoretic sense and thus “undue” restraints under Standard Oil, restraints that exercised

market power and produced a departure from the optimal mix of price, quality, and output that a

280
See WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS , at 28 (concluding that there is a “rebuttable
presumption that nonstandard forms of contracting have efficiency purposes”). See also Coase, The Firm
The Market, and The Law, at 26 (noting the ubiquity of transaction costs and resulting market failure in the
real world).
To be sure, some proponents of this more hospitable approach to non-standard contracts purported
to rest their arguments on “price theory.” See, e.g., Richard A. Posner, The Chicago School of Antitrust
Analysis, 127 U. PENN . L. REV . 925, 928 (1979) (arguing that hospitable, “Chicago” approach to antitrust
rests upon rigorous application of price theory); BORK , ANTITRUST PARADOX , at 117-29 (arguing that “price-
theory” should guide application of antitrust statutes); Robert H. Bork, Resale Price Maintenance and
Consumer Welfare, 77 YALE L. J. 950, 952 (1968) (contending that arguments in favor of minimum rpm are
“grounded in basic price theory”). See also Jacobs, Normative Foundation of Antitrust Economics, 74 N.
C. L. REV . at 228-29 (arguing that Chicago School approach rested on applied price theory). However, close
analysis shows that, despite this rhetorical embrace of price theory, these insights in fact rested upon a
rejection of many assumptions of price theory in favor of Transaction Cost Economics. See Meese, Price
Theory And Vertical Restraints, 45 UCLA L. Rev. at 166-170.
281
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

89
“competitive” market would produce.282 Such agreements were “market failures” that government

should correct via the antitrust laws.

According to the new paradigm, however, it was price-theoretic “competition” that

would often lead to market failure and thus interfere with an efficient allocation of resources. Instead

of producing the most favorable mixture of price, output, and quality, reliance upon technological

rivalry and standard contracts to conduct economic activity often led to suboptimal results from the

perspective of society and consumers.283 Far from “destroying” useful competition and enhancing

market power, then, complete vertical integration and various forms of non-standard contracting

often promoted competition and consumer welfare by guiding the allocation of resources closer to

the socially optimal result that a well-functioning market would actually produce.284 An exclusive

territory that induced dealers to provide appropriate services and information to consumers produced

a better allocation of resources and more consumer satisfaction, while at the same time furthering

rivalry between manufacturers.285 Similarly, a franchisor’s requirement that its franchisees purchase

282
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
283
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
284
See Baxter, The Viability of Vertical Restraints Doctrine, 75 CALIF . L. REV . at 947-48 (arguing
that vertical restraints are forms of partial integration that overcome market failures and associated
distortions of the allocation of resources); Oliver Williamson, Assessing Vertical Market Restrictions:
Antitrust Ramifications of the Transaction Cost Approach, 127 U. PENN . L REV . 953, 988-89 (1979)
(“allocative inefficiency is more apt to arise with respect to cost concerns, such as diseconomies of scale,
failure to operate assets in a least cost way, and incurring of significant transaction costs. Organizaitonal
changes that give rise to cost savings in any of the respects will, if not accompanied by offsetting price
distortions, invariably give rise to social gains.”); Coase, Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research,
at 68 (arguing that non-standard contracts and other practices are often “a necessary element in bringing
about a competitive situation”). Cf. KAYSEN & TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 12-13 (arguing that courts
should void anticompetitive arrangements, thus furthering “competition” in each industry and enhancing
social welfare) citing PIGOU , THE ECONOMICS OF WELFARE.
285
See Williamson, Assessing Vertical Market Restrictions, 127 U. PENN . L. REV . at passim; Robert
H. Bork, Resale Price Maintenance and Consumer Welfare, 77 YALE L. J. 950 (1968); Bork, Price Fixing

90
inputs from it could encourage investments in quality that consumers were willing to pay for,

avoiding the suboptimal “lemons equilibrium” that unconstrained rivalry might otherwise produce

and furthering rivalry between franchise systems.286 Finally, restrictions on the marketing discretion

of joint venture partners could induce each venturer to engage in optimal promotion of the venture’s

product, enhancing competition with other ventures and assuring more consumer satisfaction than

unconstrained “competition” would produce.287

To be sure, each such contract restrains “competition” in one sense. Yet, if courts

insist, as they have, on defining “competition” as that process which best serves the interests if

consumers, none of these arrangements is “anticompetitive”in a sense relevant to Rule of Reason

analysis.288 That rule does not treat competitive rivalry as an end in itself, but instead views rivalry

and cooperation as complementary tools for maximizing social welfare.289 The competition that

takes place in the real world and between various groups ultimately depends upon the institution of

private contracts, many of which, including “the firm” itself, are “non-standard.”290 Innovation

includes the discovery of new organizational forms and the application of old forms to new

And Market Division, 75 YALE L. J. at 472-75.

286
See Klein & Saft, Law and Economics of Franchise Tying Contracts, 26 J. L. & ECON . at 349-54.
287
See Bork, Price Fixing and Market Division, 75 YALE L. J. at 472-75.
288
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (showing that courts embraced this technical model of
competition during the inhospitality era); see also nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (Standard Oil
equated competition with “rivalry”).
289
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. See also nn. ____, supra and accompanying text
(arguing that courts embracing the price-theoretic paradigm did not void all restrictions on rivalry).
290
See National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 688; Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 53, n. 21;
Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238; Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 62. Cf. Hayek, Meaning Of Competition,
at 96 (arguing that various activities inexplicable under price theory’s model of competition are in fact
necessary to achieving a competitive result).

91
contexts.291 Such contracts prevent or attenuate market failure, moving the market toward what

economists would deem a more “competitive” result. Indeed, as Professor Coase pointed out, many

markets deemed “perfectly competitive” are in fact the end result of complex contracts limiting

rivalry between competitors.292 Such contractual competition cannot product perfect results — no

291
See Williamson, Antirust Lenses And Transaction Cost Economics, in ANTITRUST , INNOVATION,
AND COMPETITIVENESS , at 139-40 (“That the ‘same technical facilities’ produce with a ‘great variety of
costs’ comes as no surprise if nontrivial cost consequences result when firms are organized and managed
differently.”); JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER , CAPITALISM , SOCIALISM , AND DEMOCRACY , 84 (1943) (arguing that
price competition is “a matter of comparative indifference” when compared to “the competition from a new
commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, [or] the new type of organization.”) (emphasis
added).
292
Speaking in particular about commodity exchanges, Coase noted:

“I refer to commodity exchanges and stock exchanges. These are normally organized by a
group of traders (the members of the exchange) which owns (or rents) the physical facility
within which transactions take place. All exchanges regulate in great detail the activities
of those who trade in these markets (the times at which transactions can be made, what can
be traded, the responsibilities of the parties, the terms of settlement, etc.), and they all
provide machinery for the settlement of disputes and impose sanctions against those who
infringe the rules of the exchange. It is not without significance that these exchanges, often
used by economists as examples of a perfect market and perfect competition, are markets
in which transactions are highly regulated (and this quite apart from any government
regulation that there may be). It suggests, I think correctly, that for anything approaching
perfect competition to exist, an intricate system of rules and regulations would normally be
needed. Economists observing the regulations of the exchanges often assume that they
represent an attempt to exercise monopoly power and aim to restrain competition. They
ignore or, at any rate, fail to emphasize an alternative explanation for these regulations: that
they exist in order to reduce transaction costs and therefore to increase the volume of trade.”

See Coase, The Firm, The Market, and The Law, at 8-9 (emphasis added). See also Easterbrook, Limits of
Antitrust, 63 TEX . L. REV . at 1 (“The goal of antitrust is to perfect the operation of competitive markets.
What does this mean? A “competitive market” is not necessarily the one with the most rivalry moment-to-
moment. The auction in which atomically small buyers and sellers continuously shout out bid and asked
prices, the picture of ‘perfect competition’ found in economic texts, is a hypothetical construct. Every
market entails substantial cooperation over some domain in order to facilitate competition elsewhere. . . .
Markets themselves are organized. The Chicago Board of Trade, perhaps the closest of modern markets to
the textbook ideal, has a sheaf of rules and cooperative arrangements that reduce the cost of competition.”).
Compare Anderson, 171 U.S. at 616 (sustaining rules ancillary to cattle exchange whose object was to
“provide for the ready transaction of the business of the associates by obtaining a general headquarters for
its conduct, and thus to ensure a quick and certain market for the sale or purchase of the article dealt in.”);
Hayek, Meaning of Competition, at 96 (“The whole organization of the market serves mainly the need of

92
human institution ever can. Nonetheless, the result is superior to that which would obtain in a (real)

world without non-standard contracting.293 These contracts do not depend upon the creation or

enhancement of market power and thus do not produce the evils against which antitrust law is

directed. From the perspective of the Sherman Act and Standard Oil’s Rule of Reason, such

limitations are not “undue,” but instead serve to “promote” and “enhance” the sort of real world

“competition” that would “develop trade” and advance society’s welfare.294 Given this recognition

of contractual competition, proof that a non-standard contract limits rivalry in no way indicates that

it is “anticompetitive.”

E. TCE In The Supreme Court: A Partial Victory For The New Paradigm

The insights produced by transaction cost economics soon came to influence antitrust

policy, leading the Supreme Court to contract the scope of certain per se rules. Most notably, these

advances in theory caused the courts and enforcement agencies to abandon their hostility toward

many vertical restraints. In Continental T.V. v. GTE Sylvania, for instance, the Court abandoned

the per se rule against manufacturer restrictions on locations, territories and customers that dealers

could serve.295 The Court relied expressly upon transaction cost reasoning, emphasizing that a

spreading the information on which the buyer is to act.”) (emphasis added).

293
See Hayek, Meaning Of Competition, at 100 (“The basis of comparison, on the grounds of which
competition [in the real world] ought to be judged cannot be a situation which is different from the objective
facts and which cannot be brought about by any known means. It ought to be the situation that would exist
if competition were prevented from operating. Not the approach to an unachievable and meaningless ideal
but the improvement upon the conditions that would exist without competition should be the test.’).
Applying Professor Hayek’s wisdom, then, many decisions during the price-theoretic era “prevented
competition from operating.”
294
See Coase, Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, at 68.
295
433 U.S. 36 (1978).

93
“purely competitive situation” between dealers could produce a market failure, namely, inadequate

promotional expenditures that could enhance the goodwill associated with a dealer’s product.296

Thus, while vertical restraints necessarily hindered intrabrand competition, they could in some cases

enhance “interbrand” competition between manufacturers by preventing dealers from free riding on

the promotional efforts of their colleagues.297 While such restraints constrained the discretion of

dealers, such a non-economic concern was beyond the scope of the Sherman Act.298

A decade later, the Court narrowed the definition of minimum resale price

maintenance, excluding agreements between a dealer and manufacturer to terminate another dealer

that was cutting prices.299 Here again, the Court relied upon transaction cost reasoning, noting that

reductions in dealer prices could go hand-in-hand with a reduction in promotional efforts, to the

detriment of interbrand competition and consumers.300 Another decade would pass before the Court

296
“Because of market imperfections such as the ‘free rider’ effect, these [promotional] services
might not be provided by retailers in a purely competitive situation, despite the fact that each retailer’s
benefit would be greater if all provided the service than if none did.” Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 55.
297
Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 55-57. See also WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at
370-73 (describing transaction-cost basis of Sylvania).
298
Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 53, n. 21 (“Competitive economies have social and political as well as
economic advantages, but an antitrust policy divorced from market considerations would lack any objective
benchmarks. As Justice Brandeis reminded us: ‘Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade,
restrains. To bind, to restrain, is of their very essence.’”) (quoting Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238).
299
See Business Electronics Corp. v. Sharp Electronics, 485 U.S. 717 (1988). See also Monsanto v.
Spray-Rite Service Co., 465 U.S. 725 (1984) (a manufacturer’s termination of one distributor after
complaints from competing distributors cannot itself support finding of resale price maintenance).
300
See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 727-28. To be sure, the Court did not carefully
examine whether, in fact, the restraint at issue actually produced the benefits the defendants claimed for it.
See Williamson, Antitrust Lenses And Transaction Cost Economics, at 156-57 (criticizing the Court for
simply “parroting” defendants’ free rider argument, even though the evidence was “conflicting”). It should
be emphasized, though, that the reasonableness vel non of the restraint was not before the Court. Instead,
the narrow question presented was whether the restraint plausibly produced procompetitive benefits and thus
survived per se scrutiny. See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 728-30 (declining to apply a per se rule

94
abandoned the per se ban on maximum resale price maintenance, finding that such restraints could

further interbrand competition by protecting consumers from opportunistic price gouging by a

manufacturer’s dealers.301

At the same time, the Court slowly contracted the scope of the per se rule against

horizontal restraints on rivalry, recognizing in the process that such restraints can produce non-

technological efficiencies.302 In BMI v. CBS, for instance, the Court refused to apply the per se rule

to a price agreement between thousands of composers, finding that the arrangement was necessary

to the creation of a new product — a blanket license — and thus properly subject to analysis under

the Rule of Reason.303 In NCAA, discussed earlier, the Court further contracted the per se rule,

holding that some cooperation between competitors — including cooperation on price — was

necessary to create college football with the result that Rule of Reason treatment of other horizontal

ancillary restraints was appropriate.304 Like Sylvania and its progeny, each of these decisions relied

on transaction cost reasoning. In BMI, for instance, the Court emphasized that individual bargains

because “a quite plausible purpose of the restriction [is] to enable [the defendant] to provide better services
under the sales franchise agreement.”).
301
See State Oil v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3 (1997); Alan J. Meese, Economic Theory, Trader Freedom, and
Consumer Welfare: State Oil v. Khan and the Continuing Incoherence of Consumer Welfare, 84 CORNELL
L. REV . 763, 777-81 (1999) (explaining how TCE undermined economic premises of Albrecht) . It should
be noted that Albrecht also fell prey to developments within price theory, particularly the recognition that
maximum rpm could eliminate the so-called “double mark-up” problem and thus expand output. See, e.g.,
Roger D. Blair & John E. Lopatka, The Albrecht Rule After Khan: Death Becomes Her, 74 Notre Dame L.
Rev. 123 (1998).
302
See Topco, 405 U.S. at passim (declaring ancillary territorial restraints unlawful per se); Seally,
388 U.S. at passim (same).
303
441 U.S. 1, 19-25 (1979).
304
NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102.

95
between composers and performers — price-theoretic “competition” — were rarely feasible, and

that the blanket license under challenge was necessary to overcome these costs and thus increase the

output of performances and compositions.305 Moreover, in NCAA, the Court concluded that (price-

theoretic) “competition” between schools to attract athletes would transform amateur football into

professional football, undermining the league’s effort to offer a distinctive product to consumers.306

In each case, the Court recognized that unconstrained rivalry between horizontal competitors could

produce a market failure, reducing the welfare of consumers and society.307

Each of these modern decisions rejected a price-theoretic account of “competition”

in favor of one derived from transaction cost economics. In so doing, courts “translated” Standard

Oil’s normative premise in light of new understandings of the economic causes and consequences

of certain restraints.308 Restraints once deemed entirely “anticompetitive” and thus unlawful per se

305
BMI, 441 U.S. at 20-23. See also NCAA, 468 U.S. at 114 (“In Broadcast Music, the availability
of a package product that no individual could offer enhanced the total volume of music that was sold.”);
HOVENKAMP , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 210 (“The blanket license arrangement [at issue in BMI] saved
untold millions in transaction costs.”).
306
NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102 (“Moreover, the NCAA seeks to market a particular brand of football
— college football. The identification of this ‘product’ with an academic tradition differentiates college
football from and makes it more popular than professional sports to which it might otherwise be comparable,
such as, for example, minor league baseball. In order to preserve the character and quality of the ‘product,’
athletes must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like. And the integrity of the ‘product’
cannot be preserved except by mutual agreement; if an institution adopted such restrictions unilaterally, its
effectiveness as a competitor on the playing field might soon be destroyed. Thus, the NCAA plays a vital
role in enabling college football to preserve its character, and as a result enables a product to be marketed
which might otherwise be unavailable. In performing this role, its actions widen consumer choice — not
only the choices available to sports fans but also those available to athletes — and hence can be viewed as
procompetitive.”).
307
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
308
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (showing that Standard Oil contemplates such
translation).

96
now could produce cognizable benefits and were properly subject to a more discriminating analysis

under the Rule of Reason.309

This reliance upon a new economic paradigm led some to proclaim the death of the

inhospitality tradition.310 The tradition is alive, if not entirely well, however. Sylvania itself drew

a line between non-price vertical restraints and minimum resale price maintenace, suggesting that

the latter would remain unlawful per se, as it has.311 Such a distinction has no basis in transaction

cost economics, which views both practices as methods of overcoming the market failure that

unbridled rivalry would produce.312 Nearly a decade after Sylvania, the Court reaffirmed the per se

rule against tying contracts, failing to recognize the various benefits of these arrangements and

reiterating the claim that such agreements necessarily thwart “competition on the merits” when

obtained by sellers with market power.313 In so doing, the Court reiterated its claim that

309
See, e.g., Khan, 522 U.S. at 15-16; Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 54-59.
310
See, e.g., Richard Markovits, The Limits to Simplifying Antitrust: A Reply To Professor
Easterbrook, 63 TEX . L. REV . 41, 51 (1984) (“The inhospitality tradition is dead, or at least dying.”); Richard
A. Posner, The Rule of Reason and the Economic Approach: Reflections on the Sylvania Decision, 45 U. CHI .
L. REV . 1, 5-12 (1978) (describing various precedents purportedly “endangered” by the Sylvania decision).
311
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 51, n. 18. See also Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 724-25
(adhering to per se rule against minimum rpm) (dicta); Monsanto v. Spray-Rite Service Co., 465 U.S. 752
(1984) (declining invitation of Amicus Curiae United States to reconsider per se ban on minimum rpm).
312
See Williamson, Assessing Vertical Market Restrictions, 127 U. PENN . L. REV . at 954-60; William
Baxter, Vertical Practices -- Half Slave, Half Free, 52 ANTITRUST L.J. 743 (1983).
313
See Jefferson Parish Hosp. Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U.S. 2, 12 (1985) (concluding that where seller
possesses market power “forcing is present, [and] competition on the merits in the market for the tied item
is restrained”); accord Eastman Kodak v. Image Technical Services, 504 U.S. 451 (1992). See also Meese,
Tying Meets the New Institutional Economics, 146 U. PENN . L. REV . at 86-94 (arguing that developments in
transaction cost economics require repudiation of Jefferson Parish). It should be noted that, despite its
adherence to the per se rule, Jefferson Parish adopted a more rigorous definition of market power than that
embraced by prior decisions. See id. at 26-29. But compare Eastman Kodak, 504 U.S. at 467-78 (existence
of information gaps and specific-investments confers market power for per se purposes).

97
technological “competition” would maximize social wealth.314 Finally, the Court has also reaffirmed

the per se rule against maximum horizontal price fixing, reiterating its previous assertion that such

conduct thwarts “the forces of the competitive market.”315

Despite the revolution in economic theory worked by Transaction Cost Economics,

the case law governing the scope of per se rules lacks a coherent account of “competition.” Some

doctrines still equate “competition” with technological rivalry, unconstrained by non-standard

contracts. Arrangements inconsistent with such rivalry are therefore “anti-competitive.” Other

decisions embrace a more modern, contractual version, which recognizes that real world competition

usually requires contracts and other practices inexplicable with price-theoretic models. The trend,

if there is one, would seem to be away from price theory.

IV THE RULE OF REASON’S OUTMODED MODEL OF COMPETITION

By embracing TCE in some per se contexts, the Court has significantly expanded the

number of contracts subject to full analysis under the Rule of Reason. Unlike per se analysis, which

consists of purely hypothetical assertions about a restraint’s costs and benefits, analysis under the

314
See Jefferson Parish, 466 U.S. at 12 (“‘Basic to the faith that a free economy best promotes the
public weal is that goods must stand the cold test of competition; that the public, acting through the market’s
impersonal judgment, shall allocate the nation’s resources and thus direct the course its economic
development will take.’”) (quoting Times-Picayune Publishing Co., 345 U.S. at 605).
315
See Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U.S. 332, 346-47 (1982) (quoting Albrecht,
390 U.S. at 152). It should also be noted that the Court has retained the distinction between “competition
on the merits” and presumptively anticompetitive non-standard contracts in the monopolization context. See
Eastman Kodak, 504 U.S. at 483 (contracts by monopolists that foreclose “competition on the merits” for
a significant portion of the marketplace are presumptively unlawful.); Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands
Skiing Corp., 472 U.S. 585 (1985). See also Alan J. Meese, Don’t Disintegrate Microsoft (Yet), 9 GEO . MAS .
L. REV . 761, 786-90 (2001) (showing that Court’s preference for “competition on the merits” in the
monopolization context reflects the inhospitality approach to antitrust).

98
Rule of Reason calls for examination of a restraint’s actual economic impact.316 Under current law

this analysis contains three main elements. First, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case, by

showing that a restraint produces “actual detrimental effects” or offering indirect evidence that the

defendants possesses or may acquire market power. Second, if the plaintiff makes such a showing,

defendants must respond by offering proof of real cognizable benefits that “outweigh’ any harm

identified by the plaintiff. Third, even if the defendant shows that the benefits of a practice

outweigh its harms, a plaintiff can respond by showing that a less restrictive alternative will produce

the same benefits.317

As shown below, the current structure of Rule of Reason analysis as applied to

contractual integration reflects an outmoded model of “competition,” a model that the Court has

often rejected in the per se context. Although judicial embrace of transaction cost economics and

a contractual version of competition has saved many forms of contractual integration from

condemnation under the per se rule, the current structure of Rule of Reason analysis applied to these

very same restraints rejects TCE in favor of a price-theoretic, technological account of

“competition.” More precisely, each element of the current Rule of Reason balancing test rests upon

the sort of outmoded price-theoretic premises that gave rise to the inhospitality tradition and its broad

per se rules.

Application of the TCE paradigm suggests that the current Rule of Reason test is

flawed as applied to contractual integration in three distinct ways. First, proof of “actual detrimental

effects” should not suffice to establish a prima facie case that contractual integration that plausibly

316
See nn. ____, supra.
317
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (describing current law).

99
overcomes market failure is harmful. Second, if such proof does suffice and defendants show that

such integration will overcome a market failure, courts should not “balance” such benefits against

purported harms. Third, proof that a “less restrictive alternative” will produce benefits similar to

those produced by the restraint in question should not entitle a plaintiff to judgment. While the

current Rule of Reason test may well make sense when applied to restraints or mergers that create

technological efficiencies that arise “within” a firm, application of that test to contractual integration

that purportedly prevents market failure cannot be justified. Courts and the enforcement agencies

should alter the structure of Rule of Reason analysis to account for recent advances in economic

theory, just as they have done so often in the per se context.

A. The Prima Facie Case:

As explained earlier, current law allows plaintiffs to establish a prima facie case by

showing that the contract under challenge produces higher prices or a reduction in output or quality

when compared to the status quo ante.318 While plaintiffs can also rely upon proof that the defendant

possesses a significant share of a properly-defined market characterized by entry barriers, relatively

few plaintiffs are able to make such a showing. Leading scholars and the enforcement agencies have

endorsed the “actual detrimental effects” approach, although some lower courts, particularly the

Seventh Circuit, have demurred.319

On its face, the actual detrimental effects test seems a straightforward application of

Standard Oil. That decision, after all, held that the Sherman Act bans those contracts producing the

318
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. See also, e.g., Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476
U.S. at 460-61; NCAA, 468 U.S. at 104-108.
319
See, e.g., Chicago Professional Sports Ltd., 95 F.3d at 600-601; see also Murrow Furniture
Galleries, 889 F.2d at 528.

100
“evils” or consequences of monopoly, viz. higher prices, lower output, or a deterioration in quality. 320

Proof that a restraint results in a change in price or output should therefore, it seems, cast upon the

defendants some burden of justification.

Current law’s definition of a prima facie case is a faithful application of Standard Oil

if the price-theoretic approach to industrial organization provides a satisfactory model for

interpreting the causes and consequences of economic activity in general and non-standard contracts

in particular. As explained earlier, the price-theoretic model assumes that “competition” consists

of constant technological rivalry between various firms, unconstrained by non-standard contracts.321

This rivalry manifests itself in unilateral efforts to alter the cost and quality of a firm’s products.322

While mergers and other practices producing technological efficiencies can be “competitive” within

this paradigm, non-standard contracts cannot produce cognizable benefits and are thus

“monopolistic.”

The “competition” imagined by price theory and endorsed during the inhospitality era

results in a “competitive” result, that is, a “competitive” equilibrium in prices, output, and quality.323

This equilibrium reflects an optimal allocation of resources and thus maximizes the welfare of

society.324 These results, in turn, form a sort of baseline, the departure from which is presumptively

(and etymologically) “anticompetitive.” By their nature, non-standard contracts produce no

320
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (explaining Standard Oil’s normative premise).
321
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
322
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
323
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
324
See Northern Pac. R. Co., 356 U.S. at 4; Times Picayune Co., 345 U.S. at 605. See also nn. ____,
supra and accompanying text.

101
cognizable benefits and thus reflect an (“anticompetitive”) attempt to exercise or obtain market

power and thereby produce price, quality and output different from the competitive baseline. Such

reasoning led courts at one time to condemn such non-standard contracts as unlawful per se or nearly

so, with little or no analysis of their actual effects.325

As explained earlier, the Supreme Court has rejected the price-theoretic account of

competition in certain per se contexts, mandating Rule of Reason scrutiny of many non-standard

contracts as a result.326 Moreover, a requirement that a plaintiff actually prove that a restraint

produces tangible “anticompetitive” effects would seem to be an improvement over the hostility

toward such restraints manifested by the inhospitality tradition. Nonetheless, reliance upon “actual

detrimental effects” to establish a prima facie case rests upon a similar embrace of price-theoretic

“competition” as a baseline for evaluating the effect of contractual integration. For instance, any

presumption that a price increase caused by the adoption of a restraint reflects the exercise of market

power necessarily depends upon an assumption that the prices set by the preexisting “unrestrained”

325
See nn. ____, supra.
326
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text.

102
market were “competitive” in some relevant sense.327 Such an assumption, of course, flows naturally

from application of the price-theoretic paradigm and its account of “competition.”

Adoption of the revised economic paradigm produced by Transaction Cost Economics

undermines price theory’s model of “competition” and with it the account of “anticompetitive harm”

that drives the definition of a prima facie case embraced by courts, enforcement agencies and

numerous leading scholars. According to this new paradigm, there is no reason to presume that

results produced by rivalry unconstrained by non-standard contracts are “competitive” in any relevant

sense or otherwise appropriate benchmarks for measuring the effect of a restraint. To the contrary,

TCE predicts that unrestrained rivalry between autonomous firms will often result in a market

failure, that is, a departure from the optimal allocation of resources that a perfectly competitive

market would produce.328 Such a departure will necessarily manifest itself in prices, output, or

quality different from what a well-functioning market would bring about.

As a result, where defendants avoid per se liability by plausibly asserting that a

restraint combats a market failure, proof that contractual integration results in prices or other terms

327
The enforcement agencies have embraced this assumption explicitly, stating that the “central
question” in Rule of Reason analysis is whether a restraint results in prices or output different from what an
“unrestrained” market would produce. See Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.1 (“Rule of reason
analysis focuses on the state of competition with, as compared to without, the relevant agreement. Under
the rule of reason, the central question is whether the relevant agreement likely harms competition by
increasing the ability or incentive profitably to raise prices above or reduce output, quality, service or
innovation below what likely would prevail in the absence of the relevant agreement.”). See also NCAA, 468
U.S. at 104-108 (proof that ancillary restraint reduced output and increased prices when compared to
operation of a “free market” sufficed to establish a prima facie case); id. at 114-115 (proof that restraint
produced prices higher than the “competitive” market undermined claim that arrangement was
procompetitive); National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 693-95 (justification that assumed
that restraint produced prices higher than unrestrained rivalry is not cognizable); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , ¶
1504, p. 380-81 (justification that rests upon assertion that “competitive” prices are too low cannot be
cognizable); id. at ¶ 1511, pp. 432-33 (endorsing NCAA’s approach to defining a prima facie case).
328
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

103
of trade different from those that existed before the agreement does not suggest the presence of or

attempt to obtain market power. As noted earlier, transaction cost economics adopts a presumption

that non-standard contracts have efficiency purposes, absent concrete proof to the contrary.329 By

embracing TCE in the per se context, the Supreme Court has adopted a similar presumption, which

plaintiffs must rebut by establishing a prima facie case when challenging a restraint under the Rule

of Reason.

Proof that an agreement results in prices or output different from the status quo ante

in no way establishes that a restraint produces cognizable antitrust harm. Here it is important to keep

in mind that: 1) the defendant has avoided per se treatment by adducing a plausible story that the

restraint overcomes market failure, 2) the plaintiff has adduced no evidence regarding the structure

of the relevant market, and 3) market failures are widespread.330 As a result, proof that a restraint

alters price or output when compared to the status quo ante is at least equally consistent with an

alternative explanation, namely, that the agreement under scrutiny corrects a market failure and does

329
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text. See also WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, at
28 (concluding that there is “a rebuttable presumption that nonstandard forms of contracting have efficiency
purposes”).
330
See Coase, The Firm, The Market, And The Law, at 26 (noting that transaction costs and thus
market failures are ubiquitous in the real world).
One might argue that the very fact that a plaintiff has selected a particular case for litigation itself
suggests that the defendants’ conduct is more harmful than the average contract. Why, after all, would a
plaintiff waste resources challenging an arrangement that a court will most likely deem reasonable? However,
it should be noted that a plaintiff’s chance of success will itself be a function of the structure of Rule of
Reason analysis articulated by the courts. If a plaintiff could establish a prima facie case simply by showing
that a restraint produced prices above the status-quo ante, then plaintiffs could more readily avoid summary
judgment and thus use the threat of treble damage liability to negotiate a generous settlement. The prospect
of such a settlement, and not the underlying economics of the challenged agreement, may drive much
antitrust litigation, with the result that there is no reason to assume that challenged agreements are
significantly more anticompetitive than those that are not, at least so long as courts adhere to the current
approach to Rule of Reason litigation.

104
not involve the exercise or creation of market power.331 Because such failures can result in prices

that are below the optimum, or output that is above it, contracts that correct or attenuate market

failure will often increase prices or reduce output when compared to the status quo ante.332 As a

result, proof that such a restraint alters price or other terms of trade is at least equally consistent with

a procompetitive explanation, it cannot give rise to a prima facie case under settled antitrust

doctrine.333 Absent proof that market structure is conducive to the creation or exercise of market

power, a plaintiff’s attempt to establish a prima facie case should fail.

Consideration of three examples will illustrate this counter-intuitive point. First,

assume that a manufacturer grants its dealers exclusive territories, departing from a prior policy that

allowed dealers to sell where they pleased.334 Assume further that a terminated dealer (or the

government) challenges the policy under the Sherman Act. Under current law, the parties to the

arrangement could avoid per se condemnation by claiming that the restraint will prevent dealers from

331
See Baxter, Viability of Vertical Restraints Doctrine, 75 CALIF . L. REV . at 948; Williamson,
Assessing Vertical Market Restrictions, 127 U. PENN . L. REV . at 987-88 (“allocative inefficiency is more apt
to arise with respect to cost concerns, such as diseconomies of scale, failure to operate assets in a least cost
way, and the incurring of significant transaction costs. Organizational changes that give rise to cost savings
in any of these respects will, if not accompanied by offsetting price distortions, invariably lead to social
gains.”); Coase, Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, at 68 (contending that nonstandard
contracts and other practices are often attempts at “bringing about a competitive situation”).
332
See nn. ___, supra (explaining that price-theoretic “competition” can produce prices, output and
quality that depart from the optimum).
333
See Matsushita Elec. Industrial Corp. v, Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587-95 (1986) (holding
that evidence that is equally consistent with pro and anticompetitive objectives cannot by itself support an
inference of anticompetitive harm); Monsanto Corp. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U.S 752, 761-64 (1984)
(same); First National Bank v. Cities Serv. Co., 391 U.S. 253, 279-280 (same). See also Eastman Kodak,
504 U.S. at 466-67 (legal presumptions employed in antitrust litigation should rest on actual market realities
and not implausible economic theories).
334
Cf. Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 38-39 (describing Sylvania’s reform of its distribution system that
included creation of location clauses).

105
free riding on each others’ promotional efforts and thus counteract a market failure.335 Moreover,

the logic of decisions such as NCAA and Indiana Federation of Dentists suggests that proof that the

restraint increases the retail price of the manufacturer’s product should establish a prima facie case

that the arrangement is “anticompetitive.”336 Should proof that the restraint produces prices above

the pre-existing level establish a prima facie case?337 Emphatically not. A market that is

“competitive” in a price-theoretic sense may not produce sufficient dealer investment in promotional

activity or other services. Such activity costs money, and a dealer will not invest money in

335
See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 725-29; Continental T.V. v. GTE Sylvania, 433 U.S.
36 (1978).
336
See NCAA., 468 U.S. at 104-108 (proof that restraint increased prices of defendants’ products
sufficed to establish a prima facie case); nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (showing that the Supreme
Court has not limited the “actual detrimental effects” test to the horizontal context); see also Jefferson
Parish, 466 U.S. at 29-31 (conducting Rule of Reason analysis despite absence of market power); Sylvania,
433 U.S. at 51-59 (suggesting that courts should analyze non-price vertical restraints by comparing impact
on “intrabrand” and “interbrand” competition). But see nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (suggesting
that some courts apparently require proof of market-wide “actual detrimental effects” where certain vertical
restraints are concerned).
337
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 51-52 (assuming that reduction in intrabrand competition is an antitrust
harm). It should be noted that some scholars who would otherwise apply the “actual detrimental effects”
approach conclude that a plaintiff should have to offer some evidence of market shares to establish a prima
facie case when challenging a vertical distribution restraint. None of these scholars, however, would require
plaintiffs to establish the sort of market structure ordinarily associated with a market power filter, and each
offers a test that seems to ignore the presence or absence of barriers to entry. See SULLIVAN AND GRIMES ,
LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 327-32 (purporting to apply market power screen but defining market power as
including a “successful brand” without regard to absence of barriers to entry); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 488-89 (proof that a manufacturer has a 40% share of a relevant market and that one
half of its dealers are governed by a restraint should establish a prima facie case, apparently without regard
to entry conditions); id. at 446 (asserting that entry by multiproduct retailers cannot be presumed “easy”);
8 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1648d2B, at 530 (manufacturer’s possession of 30% share of relevant market
sufficient to establish prima facie case; no analysis of entry barriers indicated). Cf. Jefferson Parish, 466
U.S. at 26-29 (30% share of properly defined market does not establish market power, despite the existence
of some customers with strong preferences for the defendant’s product).

106
promotion unless it can capture the benefits of such expenditures.338 Thus, reliance on unconstrained

dealers to distribute a product may produce a market failure, that is, suboptimal dealer expenditure

on promotional activities and nonoptimal consumer demand for the product in question.339 This

failure, in turn, will manifest itself in the form of lower prices and perhaps even increased output.340

An exclusive territory could correct this market failure, by conferring a sort of

property right on dealers to sell in a particular area.341 Armed with this right, dealers could invest

in optimal levels of promotion, knowing that they could recapture the benefits of such investment.342

Such investment would raise dealers’ cost of operation and thus result in prices higher than those that

obtained before the restraint, so long as consumers are willing to pay the premium that reflects this

additional service. All beneficial vertical restraints are designed to increase price in exactly this

manner.343

338
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 54-56; Williamson, Assessing Vertical Market Restrictions, 127 U. PENN .
L. REV . at 958-60; 975-80; Bork, Rule of Reason, 75 YALE L. J. at 433-36; Telser, Why Should Manufacturers
Want Fair Trade?, 3 J. L. & ECON . at 89-92.
339
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 55 (“Because of market imperfections such as the so-called ‘free rider’
effect, the [promotional] services might not be provided by retailers in a purely competitive situation, despite
the fact that each retailer’s benefit would be greater if all provided the services than if none did.”); Telser,
Why Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade?, 3 J. L. & ECON . at 89-92; Bork, Rule of Reason, 75 YALE L.
J. at 429-38.
340
See Posner, Analysis of the Restricted Distribution, Horizontal Merger, and Potential Competition
Decisions, 75 COLUM . L. REV . at 284-85 (free riding results in lower dealer prices).
341
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. 487, n. 109 (analogizing exclusive territories to property
rights); Bork, Resale Price Maintenance and Consumer Welfare, 77 Yale L. J. 950, 956 (1968) (“Contract
law delegates to private persons the power to create property rights because of their superior knowledge of
the efficiencies to be gained in particular situations. R.P.M. is best seen as an instance of this general
principle.”).
342
Bork, Rule of Reason, 75 YALE L. J. at 433-36.
343
See Frank H. Easterbrook, Vertical Restraints and the Rule of Reason, 53 ANTITRUST L. J. 135,
156 (1984) (“Every restricted dealing arrangement is designed to influence price. It must be. If territorial

107
 Such a price increase would not reflect any exercise of market power and thus would

not manifest the sort of “evil consequence” the Sherman Act condemns.344 Economists, including

those who adhere to price theory, define market power as the ability profitably to restrict output and

price above the cost of production, and this is the sort of power Standard Oil had in mind.345 If an

exclusive territory raises prices by eliminating or attenuating market failure, such an increase would

reflect increased dealer costs and thus not reflect any exercise of market power.346 Despite its

(indirect) impact on price, such a restraint would not be “undue,” but would instead constitute a

limits induce dealers to supply additional service and information, they do so only because they raise the
price and call forth competition in the service dimension. . . . Every argument about restricted dealing
implies that the restrictions influence price. There is no such thing as a free lunch; the manufacturer can’t
get the dealer to do more without increasing the dealer’s margin.”); Posner, Analysis of the Restricted
Distribution, Horizontal Merger, and Potential Competition Decisions, 75 COLUM . L. REV . at 284; William
F. Baxter, Vertical Restraints Doctrine, 75 CAL . L. REV . 933, 945-46 (1987):

Higher retail prices are entirely consistent with the benign explanation of resale price
maintenance. Imposition of [resale price maintenance] reflects a judgment on the part of the
brand owner that her products will compete more successfully, both against other branded
products and against generic rivals, if the retailer competes along parameters other than
price. And the retailer’s expenses of engaging in those other forms of rivalry are financed
by setting a retail margin higher than would prevail if retail price competition were allowed
or encouraged.

See also Telser, Why Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade, 3 J. L. & Econ. at 91 (absent such restraints
dealers “reduce their prices because they avoid the additional cost of the special services”).
344
See Posner, Analysis of the Restricted Distribution, Horizontal Merger, and Potential Competition
Decisions, 75 COLUM . L. REV . at 284 (higher prices occasioned by vertical restrictions reflect additional cost
of optimal service and not market power); Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 66 (Sherman Act does not forbid
contract that “indirectly” raises prices). See also nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
345
See William Landes and Richard Posner, Market Power In Antitrust Cases, 94 HARV . L. REV . 937
(1981); KAYSEN & TURNER , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 12-13 (treating economic efficiency as primary goal of
antitrust and equating efficiency with marginal cost pricing). See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

346
See Easterbrook, Vertical Restraints and the Rule of Reason, 53 ANTITRUST L. J. at 156.

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“normal,” “ordinary,” or “usual” method of furthering trade.347 Although a “non-standard” contract

that reaches “beyond” the firm, such an arrangement would be economically indistinguishable from

a manufacturer’s (cost-increasing) decision to enter employment contracts with additional

salespeople or advertising experts to promote the product “itself.”348 Even price theorists would treat

such “intra-firm” activities as “competitive;” there is no reason to treat other contracts that produce

the same results any differently. 349 Thus, proof that such a restraint produces increased prices may

simply confirm that the arrangement is having its laudable, welfare-enhancing effect.350 Because

347
See Standard Oil, 221 U.S. at 66 (“To treat as condemned by the act all agreements under which,
as a result, the cost of conducting an interstate commercial business may be increased would enlarge the
application of the act far beyond the fair meaning of the language used. There must be some direct and
immediate impact upon interstate commerce in order to come within the act.”) (quoting Hopkins, 175 U.S.
at 592); Business Electronics, 485 U.S. at 729-30 (agreement between dealer and manufacturer to terminate
a second dealer was “ancillary” despite possible impact on price). See also Fowle v. Park, 131 U.S. 88,
97 (1889) (enforcing resale price maintenance and exclusive territories ancillary to sale of patent medicine);
Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 283 (citing Fowle as a case properly enforcing an ancillary restraint); nn. ____,
supra and accompanying text (discussing distinction between direct and indirect restraints).
348
See Bork, Rule of Reason, 75 YALE L. J. 438 (“since there is presently no antitrust objection to
the most efficient utilization of local sales effort by ownership integrated firms, there seems no reason to
discriminate against the achievement of the same objective by contract-integrated systems through the use
of market division agreements”); Walsh v. Dwight, 58 N.Y.S. 91, 93 (App. Div. 1899) (resale price
maintenance not an unlawful restraint of trade because manufacturer could have achieved same objective
by relying upon its own employees to distribute the product in question).
349
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (describing price-theoretic definition of
“competition.”). See also, e.g., Schwinn, 388 U.S. at 381-82 (finding consignment agreement reasonable
method of distributing manufacturer’s goods).
350
See Meese, Farewell to the Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 495; Frank H. Easterbrook,
Ignorance And Antitrust 119, 121, reprinted in ANTITRUST , INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS (Thomas
M. Jorde & David J. Teece, eds. 1992) (“[M]onopoly and efficiency explanations so often imply similar
traits. Think of vertical restrictions within a dealership network. If these monopolize, the price rises and
output falls. If the restraints cause dealers to supply efficient point-of-sale services delivered to consumers,
again price rises, and quantity may fall (although consumers’ surplus would rise because they value the
higher quality.”); Baxter, Vertical Restraints Doctrine, 75 CAL . L. REV . at 945-46.

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such proof is equally consistent with the defendants’ procompetitive account of the restraint, it

cannot establish any presumptive entitlement to judgment.351

Ironically, the Supreme Court’s approach to non-price vertical restraints in the per

se context would seem to compel rejection of the “actual detrimental effects” test in this context.

As already noted, the Court has embraced TCE’s model of competition when addressing non-price

vertical restraints, recognizing that restraints limiting intrabrand “competition” may be “reasonable”

insofar as they prevent free riding.352 The Court has also refused to apply the per se rule simply

because a vertical practice results in prices higher than those that obtained before the restraint.353 In

so doing, the Court has explicitly recognized that vertical agreements may increase prices by

351
See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Corp. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587-95 (1986) (holding
that evidence that is as consistent with procompetitive as with anticompetitive account of a restraint cannot,
without more, support an inference of anticompetitive conduct); Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Services, Co.,
465 U.S. 752, 761-64 (1984) (same); First Nat’l Bank v. Cities Services Co., 391 U.S. 253, 279-80 (1968)
(same).
Of course, manufacturers that adopt vertical restraints in an attempt to overcome market failure hope
that additional sales effort induced by the restraint will ultimately result in increased output, as consumers
demand more of the product. Nonetheless, proof that such a restraint results in reduced output should not
suffice to establish a prima facie case. Such proof may simply reflect a variety of phenomena unrelated to
the exercise of market power. For instance, a manufacturer may lose sales because it has miscalculated
consumers’ response to additional promotion only to find consumers have choosen substitute products in
response to the increased price of the manufacturer’s product. It would be perverse to rest a prima facie case
on evidence that the market had punished a firm’s poor judgment. Moreover, much promotional activity will
only enhance consumer demand over the longer run. For instance, automobile dealers may slowly enhance
goodwill by advertising, participating in community activities, and providing excellent post-sale service.
Such activities could actually reduce the dealer’s sales in the short run, with the result that a plaintiff
challenging an exclusive territory could show that output fell after a manufacturer granted the dealer such
protection. Of course, this result would be perverse.
352
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 54-57.
353
See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 731. See also Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service
Corp., 465 U.S. 752, 762-64 (1984).

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inducing dealer promotion and that such price increases are procompetitive.354 Moreover, the court

has explicitly held that product differentiation is procompetitive.355 Application of an “actual

detrimental effects” test, by contrast, necessarily rests upon a repudiation of TCE’s more plausible

conception of competition in favor of the outmoded model associated with price theory.

Consider as a second example a horizontal restraint, drawn from an actual case.356

Assume that a number of local moving companies form a joint venture (Hercules) designed to create

a national moving system. The venture engages in national advertising, takes calls on a “1-800"

number from customers and settles customer complaints.357 The venture also promulgates uniform

standards governing various aspects of member services, trains member employees in how to meet

those standards, and monitors compliance with those requirements.358 The venture itself owns no

trucks and employs no drivers but instead refers customers who contact it to individual members,

who display the venture trademark on their trucks, the uniforms of their employees, and their own

354
See Business Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. at 727-28 (“Any agreement between a manufacturer and
a dealer who happens to have charged lower prices can be alleged to have been directed against the
terminated dealer’s ‘price cutting.’ In the vast majority of cases, it will be extremely difficult for the
manufacturer to convince a jury that its motivation was to ensure adequate services, since price cutting and
some measure of service cutting usually go hand in hand.”); id. at 731 (noting that “price cutting is frequently
made possible by ‘free riding’ on the services provided by other dealers”); Monsanto Co., 465 U.S. at 762-63
(“The manufacturer often will want to ensure that its distributors earn sufficient profit to pay for programs
such as hiring and training additional salesmen or demonstrating the technical features of the product, and
will want to see that ‘free-riders’ do not interfere. . . . Thus, the manufacturer’s strongly felt concern about
resale prices does not necessarily mean that [a violation of the Sherman Act has occurred].”).
355
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102 (stating that contractual restrictions on horizontal rivalry were
necessary to enable the NCAA to differentiate its product from minor league sports). See also Sylvania, 433
U.S. at 56 (asserting that “a large part of the promotional efforts resulting from vertical restrictions [will]
convey socially desirable information about product availability, price, quality, and services”).
356
See Rothery Storage v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 792 F.2d 210 (D.C. Cir. 1986).
357
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 211.
358
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 211-212.

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local advertising.359 Finally, assume that the venture sets rates for moving services provided to those

customers that contact the venture directly, leaving members free to set rates for customers generated

by their own local sales effort.360

Two years after the venture’s inception, Hercules revises its bylaws, to provide that

the venture shall set rates governing any carriage of goods under the venture’s trademark, without

regard to the source of the customer in question.361 The bylaws also provide that members are free

to carry goods at other rates, so long as they generate and conduct such business under their own

local trademarks.362

Assume now that the venture expels a member for carrying goods under its trademark

at rates below what the venture has prescribed. The former member challenges the expulsion under

the Sherman Act, claiming that the expulsion enforced unlawful price maintenance.363 While the

plaintiff asserts that the restraint is unlawful per se, the venture avoids summary condemnation by

asserting that the agreement on price is ancillary to the formation of the venture and necessary to

prevent some members from underselling others and thus expropriating an undue share of the

359
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 212 (describing such an allocation of responsibility).
360
It should be noted that this assumption is a slight departure from the actual facts in Rothery. There
the venture initially allowed members absolute price discretion with respect to all customers. See id. at 211-
12.
361
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 213 (describing such a policy change).
362
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 213.
363
Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 217-18 (describing plaintiff’s assertion that similar conduct
constitutes price maintenance). As a formal matter, the plaintiff could also allege that the expulsion
constitutes a group boycott. See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 215-16 (evaluating such an argument and
finding that such boycotts are analyzed under the Rule of Reason).

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opportunities created by the venture.364 Although the Supreme Court declined to recognize such

arguments during the inhospitality era, more recent legal developments suggest that the Court might

treat such benefits as cognizable, thus obviating application of the per se rule.365

How then might the plaintiff go about establishing a prima facie case under the Rule

of Reason? Under current law, the most obvious route would be to establish that prices for the

carriage of goods by the venture rose, or that the venture’s output fell, after the bylaw amendment.366

364
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 224-30 (agreement on price charged by members operating under
venture’s trademark analyzed under the Rule of Reason). See also e.g., NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102 (noting
that horizontal agreement not to pay athletes a salary could thwart market failure that unbridled competition
would produce); BMI, 441 U.S. at 20-21 (joint price setting that accompanied creation and enforcement of
blanket license analyzed under the Rule of Reason); Chicago Bd. of Trade, 246 U.S. at 238-40 (analyzing
price restraint ancillary to the formation of a grain exchange under the Rule of Reason); Chicago Bulls
Professional Sports Ltd., 95 F.3d at 597-600 (agreement by N.B.A. franchises to limit output of televised
games judged under the full Rule of Reason given plausible benefits and extent of contractual integration
between the parties); SCFC ILC, Inc. v. Visa USA, Inc., 36 F.3d 958, 969-72 (10th Cir. 1994) (joint venture
could exclude competitor to prevent latter from reaping undue portion of the fruits of the venture); Polk Bros.
v. Forest City Enterprises, 776 F.2d 185 (1985) (finding that horizontal division of markets ancillary to
creation of a shopping center could reduce free riding and was thus properly analyzed under the Rule of
Reason).
365
See Topco, 405 U.S. at 606-612 (finding that the presence or absence of such benefits was
irrelevant to the per se inquiry). But see Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 223-230 (Topco does not survive
rationale of NCAA, Sylvania, and BMI). See also Chicago Bulls Professional Sports Ltd., 95 F.3d at 597-600
(output limitation ancillary to joint venture analyzed under the Rule of Reason); Polk Bros., 776 F.2d at 188-
90 (analyzing agreement restricting products each party could sell under the Rule of Reason).
Two scholars have suggested that Topco is still good law, even with respect to ancillary restraints,
because the Supreme Court declined to modify the decision in Palmer v. BRG of Georgia, Inc., 498 U.S. 46
(1990) (per curiam). See SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , LAW OF ANTITRUST , 229-30. There was, however, no
assertion in Palmer that the horizontal division of territories in question produced any cognizable benefits,
let alone those of the sort involved in Topco. Thus, the Court’s failure in Palmer to opine regarding an issue
not before it should not be taken as a reaffirmation of this aspect of Topco.
366
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 104-108 (proof that an ancillary restraint increased price and reduced
output of defendants’ product sufficed to establish a prima facie case); Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476
U.S. at 460-61; Re/Max International, Inc., 173 F.2d at 1014-15 (proof that practice raised commissions paid
by the plaintiffs established prima facie case); Law, 134 F.3d at 1020 (finding that the plaintiff had
established a prima facie case because the challenged practice “was successful in artificially lowering the
price of coaching services” purchased by defendants); Hairston, 101 F.3d at 1319 (proof that restraint
excluded member school from bowl competition sufficed to establish prima facie case); J.F. Feeser, Inc.,
909 F.2d at 1542-43 (proof that supply contract caused some firms to pay higher prices for the defendant’s

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Here again, though, such proof should not raise a presumption that the restraints produce

anticompetitive harm.

To be sure, the arrangement eliminates horizontal rivalry with respect to price, but then so

do restraints ancillary to the formation of a partnership.367 In so far as the defendants have adduced

a plausible claim that unrestrained rivalry results in a market failure, there is no reason to assume

that the rivalry that pre-existed the restraint produced prices or output that were “competitive” in any

meaningful sense. To the contrary, a policy allowing venture members to set whatever rates they

wished for locally-generated customers could well produce a lemons equilibrium, that is, prices and

quality below the social optimum, and output above it. After all, even customers generated by

individual members would rely at least in part on the reputation associated with the venture’s

trademark. That reputation, in turn, would be a function of expenditures on national advertising, as

products established prima facie case); Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.3; HOVENKAMP , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 256 & n. 25 (“observed decreases in output, an observed increase in price
coordination or exclusion from the market of firms that seem to be competitive entrants” is sufficient to
establish a prima facie case); id. at 262 (proof that restraint results in a reduction in output establishes a
prima facie case); AREEDA , 7 ANTITRUST , ¶ 1511, pp. 432-33. See also nn. ____, supra and accompanying
text.
Indeed, it should be noted that the enforcement agencies would apparently require even less of a
plaintiff in this context. See Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.3 (stating that proof of explicit
agreement on price or output itself requires some evidence of justification). Of course, the argument in the
text, namely, that proof of actual detrimental effects should not suffice to establish a prima facie case, applies
with even greater force against this position. See generally Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. at 478-89
(arguing that mere proof of explicit agreement on price or output should not establish a prima facie case).
Finally, it should be noted that Professor Hovenkamp concludes that the restraint in Topco should
survive Rule of Reason scrutiny because of the venture’s low market share. See HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 260. He does not explain why application of a market power screen is appropriate
in this context, but inappropriate in a case like NCAA, where he approves application of an “actual
detrimental effects” route to establish a prima facie case. See id. at 262-63.

367
See Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 230.

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well as the quality of service provided by each member of the venture.368 By announcing and

charging cut-rate rates for “locally-generated” business, some members could deprive others of the

prices necessary to cover the cost of maintaining high quality service.369 Moreover, such price

cutting could deprive the venture’s membership of the resources necessary to cover the cost of

sufficient national advertising, which price cutters who generate a significant portion of their

business locally might deem less important than average members of the venture.370

Of course, tolerance of absolute pricing discretion could reduce prices and seemingly

enhance output of the venture’s services — the number of moves — in the short run, as price cutters

attract business by free riding off the quality image associated with the venture trademark. Over the

longer run, however, consumers “stung” by low quality may choose a different venture for their

future moves.371 By setting uniform rates, then, the venture can prevent this deterioration in quality,

368
See Paul Rubin, The Theory of the Firm and the Structure of the Franchise Contract, 21 J. L. &
ECON . 223, 227-28 (1978) (reputation associated with franchise system depends upon collective efforts of
franchisees).
369
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 222-23; Rubin, Structure of the Franchise Contract, 21 J. L. &
ECON . at 228 (describing propensity of franchisees to free ride on efforts of others absent effective
monitoring).
370
Cf. Chicago Professional Sports, Ltd., 961 F.2d at 673 (describing disparate incentives faced by
sporting teams that generate substantial revenue in national market through television contracts and those
that generate most revenue locally, through gate receipts).
371
See Klein and Saft, Franchise Tying Contracts, 28 J. L. & Econ. at 349-51 (describing so-called
super highway problem, whereby consumers attribute poor quality of one franchise to other firms operating
under the same trademark, ultimately reducing the demand for products sold under the franchise trademark).
The Federal Trade Commission’s opinion in In re California Dental Association also illustrates the
shortcomings of an “actual detrimental effects” test. See 121 F.T.C. 190 (1996), aff’d, 128 F.3d 720 (9th Cir.
1997), vacated on other grounds, 526 U.S. 756 (1999). There the Commission relied on evidence that certain
dentists used advertising to increase their sales to support its conclusion that the Association’s rules against
false advertising were presumptively anticompetitive. See California Dental, 121 F.T.C. at 310-311. Such
evidence, however, was equally consistent with the Association’s assertion that the advertising was
inherently misleading and that regulation of members’ advertising was therefore necessary to forestall a
lemons equilibrium. See California Dental Association, 526 U.S. at 771-73 (finding that such self-regulation

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protecting the reputation associated with the trademark and enhancing the overall demand for the

venture’s product over the longer run.372 While such a restraint would increase price or reduce

output compared to the status quo ante, such effects are entirely consistent with the defendants’

account of the restraint’s cognizable benefits.

In the same way, of course, the formation of a partnership by two previously

independent lawyers would eliminate the pricing discretion that each lawyer previously enjoyed.

Moreover, restraints on “moonlighting” could prevent one partner from luring customers away from

the partnership with cut rates for shoddy work.373 Thus, the formation of the partnership and

of advertising could be procompetitive for this reason). After all, firms engage in false advertising to
increase their sales, and proof that the Association’s regulations reduced the advertising and output of some
dentists may simply have indicated that the regulations were having their intended, beneficial effect. See
Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. at 495-96, n. 143.
372
See, e.g., Lester G. Telser, Why Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade?, 3 J. Law & Econ. 86
(1960). Some scholars have argued that price maintenance cannot by itself induce venture members to invest
in an appropriate amount of promotion. See Benjamin Klein and Kevin M. Murphy, Vertical Restraints As
Contract Enforcement Mechanisms, 31 J. Law & Econ. 265 (1989). These scholars claim that dealers subject
to price maintenance might simply “pocket” the difference between the price set by the manufacturer and
the pre-existing price, without providing any additional promotional services. Id. As a result, these scholars
conclude that price maintenance merely guarantees dealers economic rents, and that manufacturers still must
monitor and police dealers’ promotional efforts, terminating those who shirk by not providing sufficient
promotional services. See id.
The author respectfully disagrees with this analysis of vertical restraints. So long as there is effective
interbrand competition, dealers who fail to provide an effective level of promotion will suffer vis a vis
dealers of competing products. In other words, while price maintenance does not itself guarantee that dealers
will engage in promotional efforts, an agreement setting a floor on retail prices ensures that dealers who
engage in such promotion will reap the rewards of their efforts. Dealers who face significant interbrand
competition will have every incentive to engage in such promotion. Since the presence of “actual detrimental
effects” does not negate the existence of interbrand competition, proof of such effects is equally consistent
with defendants’ assertion that such a restraint solves a market failure.
373
See Addyston Pipe, 85 F. at 280 (“when two men became partners in a business, although their
union might reduce competition, this effect was only incidental to the main purpose of a union of their
capital, enterprise and energy to carry on a successful business, and one useful to the community.
Restrictions in the articles of partnership upon the business activity of the members, with a view of securing
their entire effort in the common enterprise, were of course only ancillary to the main end of the union, and
were to be encouraged.”); Matthews v. Associated Press of the State of New York, 136 N.Y. 333, 341 (1893)

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associated restraints could increase prices, by enhancing the quality associated with the venture and

thus differentiating its product. Under current law, a plaintiff challenging the initial formation of the

partnership — a merger of once independent firms — would have to establish a relevant market and

the existence of concentration within it before the defendant would bear any burden of production.374

Proof of “actual detrimental effects” would not suffice. Moreover, once the merger took place, any

pricing decisions would be beyond scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.375 There is simply

no good reason to treat one variety of contractual cooperation — the formation and operation of a

partnership — differently from another — the creation of a legitimate joint venture with ancillary

restraints.376 Proof that an ancillary restraint increases prices is entirely consistent with the venture’s

account of its benefits and thus cannot itself form the basis for a judgment against the defendants.377

Similar logic applies to other horizontal restraints that plausibly counteract market failure.378

(Peckham, J.) (“A business partnership could provide that none of its members should attend to any business
other than that of the partnership, and that each partner who came in must agree not to do any other business
and must give up all such business as he had theretofore done. Such an agreement would not be in restraint
of trade, although its direct effect might be to restrain to some extent the trade which had been done.”).
374
See 1992 Joint Merger Guidelines, § 1.0-2.0; FTC v. Tenet Health Care Corp., 186 F.3d 1045,
1051-54 (8th Cir. 1999); New York v. Kraft General Foods, Inc., 926 F. Supp. 321, 361-63 (S.D. N.Y. 1995).

375
See Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752 (1984) (wholly-owned
subsidiaries or divisions of the same firm are not capable of conspiring for Section 1 purposes). See also
Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U.S. at 357 (price setting by doctors in a partnership would be
“perfectly proper”).
376
See nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (explaining that a “firm” is simply one variety of
contractual integration); Chicago Bulls Ltd. Partnership, 95 F.3d at 597-98 (characterizing a business firm
as contractual cooperation between otherwise independent actors).
377
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
378
See, e.g., Polk Bros., Inc., 776 F.2d at 188-90 (analyzing ancillary horizontal agreement under Rule
of Reason).

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 Here again, reliance upon “actual detrimental effects” to establish a prima facie case

would seem inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s pronouncements in the per se context. As

explained earlier, the Court’s jurisprudence on non-price vertical restraints assumes that such

restraints can eliminate market failure and thus result in prices higher than those that existed before

the restraint.379 There is simply no reason in law or economics to confine this rationale to the vertical

context; horizontal restraints can also combat market failure in a variety of ways.380 Indeed, the line

between “vertical” and “horizontal” restraints is not always clear. Franchising, for instance, is a

vertical restraint to some and a horizontal restraint to others.381 The effect of such arrangements are

the same regardless of the label attached. More to the point, in NCAA, the Court expressly

recognized that unbridled horizontal rivalry — there, the “competition” for student athletes — could

379
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
380
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 479-81 (arguing that restraints characterized as
“vertical” are often equally “horizontal”); HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 205-211; Martin
B. Louis, Restraints Ancillary to Joint Ventures and Licensing Agreements: Do Seally and Topco Logically
Survive Sylvania and Broadcast Music?, 66 VA . L. REV . 879, 912-13 (1980) (arguing that rationale of
Sylvania applies with similar force to horizontal ancillary restraints); Posner, Restricted Distribution,
Horizontal Merger And Potential Competition Decisions, 75 Colum. L. Rev. at 298-99 (antitrust treatment
should not turn on characterization of restraints as “horizontal” or “vertical” but instead upon whether
restraints produce benefits); id. (arguing that horizontal ancillary restraints should be lawful absent showing
of market power). See also VISA, 36 F.3d at 970-72 (finding that horizontal restraint ancillary to joint
venture was reasonably necessary to protect venture from free riding); Polk Bros., 776 F.2d at 189-90
(explaining how restraint ancillary to the formation of a shopping center could prevent free riding and
thus encourage investment in the initial venture).

381
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L.J. at 491-92 (arguing that franchise systems can be
characterized as a horizontal agreement); WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM , at 181-82
(characterizing franchise contract as agreement between various potential competitors); HO V EN K AM P ,
FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 205 (“[R]estauranteurs scattered across a wide area might develop joint
menus, building plans, and methods of doing business, and then promote their ‘chain’ nationally. This
national name recognition will enable them to reach traveling customers that might otherwise avoid a local
restaurant about which they know nothing. The Topco case . . . involved such a venture.”). See also Rubin,
The Structure of the Franchise Contract, 21 J. L. & ECON . at passim; Chicago Professional Sports, Ltd., 95
F.3d at 598 (describing McDonald’s franchise system as agreement among potential competitors).

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result in a market failure, namely, the devolution of college football into professional.382 Thus, the

Court suggested, a horizontal restraint on price rivalry could produce cognizable benefits, viz., the

reduction of prices for athlete’s services to a level below that which price-theoretic “competition”

would produce.383 Here again the Court has embraced alternative definitions of “competition” in

the Rule of Reason and per se contexts.

Consider a third example, namely, an agreement between several elite universities

eliminating competition with respect to methods of setting financial aid.384 In particular, the

agreement prevents participating schools from offering financial aid on any basis other than

demonstrated financial need.385 While such an agreement is not ancillary to any larger venture,

participants could perhaps avoid per se condemnation by arguing that the restraint allows parties to

it to allocate limited financial aid toward students whose personal characteristics or background

would enhance the socio-economic diversity of each school.386 Assuming that such a justification

382
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102. See also BMI, 441 U.S. at 7-23 (holding that horizontal price
setting minimized transaction costs and thus increased output).
383
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 102. Moreover, as Professor Hovenkamp has recognized, the existence
of a sports league implies the ability to determine the number of games in a season and thus the output of the
league’s members. See HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 262. Presumably a league’s decision
to reduce the number of games in season would not — and certainly should not — ipso facto give rise to a
prima facie case, even if the plaintiff could show that the restraint actually reduced the number of games
played. There is no apparent distinction between such a decision and a decision to limit the number of games
that are televised. But see HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 256-57 and n. 25 (endorsing actual
detrimental effects test); id. at 262-63 (arguing that government established a prima facie case in NCAA
despite the absence of any convincing market definition).
384
See United States v. Brown University, 5 F.3d 658 (3d Cir. 1993) (evaluating such an agreement
among members of the Ivy League and MIT).
385
Id.
386
See Brown University, 5 F.3d at 675-78 (accepting variant of this argument); Meese Quick Look,
68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 490 (arguing courts should evaluate such restraints under the Rule of Reason).
Compare Arthur, A Workable Rule of Reason, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. 379 n. 263 (arguing that the benefits touted

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is cognizable, proof that the restraint produces prices higher than those that previously obtained

should not suffice to establish a prima facie case. Here again, the defendants’ justification depends

upon an assertion that unbridled rivalry in financial aid determinations would produce a lemons

equilibrium; lower prices, yes, and perhaps higher output, but also reduced educational quality

manifested in less diverse student bodies.387 Thus, proof that the restraint results in higher prices is

entirely consistent with the defendants’ account of the arrangement’s legitimate purpose and effect.388

Increased quality often involves higher costs — here the cost of providing the aid necessary to attract

diverse students. Because they are cost-justified, these higher prices do not reflect any exercise of

market power, but instead a higher quality product for which consumers are willing to pay.389

Certainly the rationale for the three restraints discussed above depends upon the

existence of product differentiation, differentiation that might confer some modest market power on

the manufacturer.390 In some cases, for instance, the restraint in question may itself be a source of

differentiation, as when colleges agree not to pay athletes, thus creating a product different from

by the Ivy League overlap group were not cognizable).

387
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 495 (asserting that defendants’ justification in this
context rests upon an assertion that unbridled rivalry will produce a lemons equilibrium). See generally
Akerlof, The Market For Lemons, 84 Q. J. Econ. at passim.
Output as measured simply by number of matriculations could increase as lower prices attracted
additional “non-diverse” students who might otherwise matriculate elsewhere if the restraints were enforced.
These students would be paying a lower price, but they would also be obtaining an inferior product.
388
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 495-96.
389
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 ANTITRUST L. J. at 495-96. See also nn. ____, supra and
accompanying text (showing that price increases associated with vertical restraints are cost-justified and do
not reflect an exercise of market power).
390
See Telser, Fair Trade, 3 J.L. & Econ. at 87 (assuming that product differentiation that leads firms
to adopt vertical restraints gives rise to market power).

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other forms of athletic entertainment.391 In other cases, such restraints might facilitate the advertising

and promotion of a manufacturer’s product, thus accentuating such differentiation, and enhancing

any market power such differentiation might confer. Moreover, the availability of various

promotional devices that inform consumers of functional distinctions between products may

encourage manufacturers to innovate, knowing that a “better mousetrap” will win consumer

patronage.392

The presence or prospect of such differentiation does not change the analysis offered

here. While firms may seek market power through product differentiation, they do not always

succeed. The Edsall was “different” from all other cars, and the new Coke was different from Pepsi

and, for that matter, the old Coke. Although both Ford and Coke spent millions of dollars promoting

their “innovations,” it seems highly unlikely that either product conferred market power on its

inventor. Few business mistakes are as spectacular as these, of course, and many attempts at

differentiation are successful. Nonetheless, “success” in a free economy often simply means the

absence of failure, that is, the ability to price at marginal cost and earn a normal return in competition

— present or future — with other differentiated products. Such competition, of course, may

radically change the character of consumer demand for the differentiated product, rendering once

loyal customers entirely indifferent. Thus, even where a justification depends upon the creation or

enhancement of product differentiation, proof that the restraint produces “detrimental effects” is

entirely consistent with defendants’ attempt simply to obtain a “normal” return and the existence of

391
See NCAA, 468 U.S at 101-102 (stating that restrictions on compensation designed to preserve
amateur quality of college football was legitimate attempt at product differentiation).
392
See, e.g., Lee Benham, The Effect Of Advertising on the Price of Eyeglasses, 15 J. L. & Econ. 337
(1972) (finding that restrictions on advertising of eyeglasses raised prices).

121
enough substitutes to render the seller a price taker.393 That the firm hopes for more does not create

antitrust harm.

At any rate, even if one stipulates that such differentiation always gives rise to market

power, there is still no reason to embrace the actual detrimental effects test. So long as entry is

feasible, even firms that sell differentiated products will find themselves confined to a normal rate

of return, as any above-normal profits attract new rivals.394 To be sure, the existence of a downward

sloping demand curve implies that such firms will price above marginal cost, and such pricing is an

393
The assertion that product differentiation need not confer market power may seem incorrect to
economists and economically sophisticated antitrust scholars, who assume that such differentiation always
confers some degree of market power, no matter how modest. See, e.g., F.M. SCHERER AND DAVID ROSS ,
INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE , 32-33 (1990). See also HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL
ANTITRUST POLICY, at 97 (“[I]n a product differentiated market firms have the ability to exploit a small
amount of market power.”). This assumption, however, is purely tautological, insofar as economists define
as “differentiated” any product for which a seller faces a downward sloping demand curve in the region
above its average cost curve. See, e.g. SCHERER AND ROSS , INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND ECON OM IC
PERFORMANCE , at 17. This downward slope, it is said, reflects the fact that some consumers strongly prefer
the product in question to any substitutes. See HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 36-37 (“Although Ford
and Chrysler automobiles compete, some buyers prefer one to the other and are willing to pay more for their
first choice. To the extent this is true, the manufacturer faces a slightly downward sloping demand curve and
may charge a price above marginal cost.”) (emphasis added); SCHERER AND ROSS , INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE
AND MARKET PERFORMANCE , at 17 (same). The ability to price above cost in this manner, of course, rests
upon the assumption that: 1) firms fully understand the demand curves they will face and 2) technology is
sufficiently plastic that a firm can enter at a scale small enough to price above marginal cost, but large
enough to achieve a profitable level of average costs.
Nonetheless, the mere fact that a demand curve is downward sloping at some levels of output at a
particular time does not mean that it is downward sloping at all levels of output at all times. A firm with
numerous loyal consumers today may find most of the same consumers indifferent tomorrow, after a rival
introduces a similar product. In such a case, the firm’s demand curve may well shift to the left and become
horizontal at all profitable levels of output. See generally SCHUMPETER , CAPITALISM , SOCIALISM , AND
DEMOCRACY , at 80-86. The discussion in the text therefore departs from the economist’s tautology and
defines “product differentiation” as any difference in attributes among products, including brand names,
without regard to the effect of such differences on the shape of demand curves at a firm’s conceivable levels
of output. See also nn. ____, infra and accompanying text (arguing that, even if product differentiation does
confer market power, such differentiation should not suffice to establish a prima facie case).
394
CLARK , COMPETITION AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS , at 21, 53, 120; Hayek, Meaning of Competition,
at 105 (suggesting that entry or threat thereof will ensure that no firm earns more than a normal rate of
return); EDWARD CHAM BER LIN , THE THEORY OF MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION , 69-88 (1933).

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exercise of market power.395 Nonetheless, differentiation meets real consumer tastes and needs, and

there is no reason to believe that the alternative, a world of entirely homogenous products priced at

marginal cost, would be superior from the perspective of consumers or anyone else.396 Nor will

attempts to penalize contractual attempts at differentiation cause sellers of differentiated products

to expand output and price at marginal cost.397 Absent some examination of barriers to entry — an

inquiry the actual detrimental effects test abjures — there is simply no reason to treat the presence

or creation of differentiation as a harm for antitrust purposes.398

395
See SCHERER AND ROSS , INDUSTRIAL MARKET STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE , at 23;
CHAM BER LIN , MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION , at 74-81.
396
See Indeed, Professor Chamberlin, who popularized the theory of monopolistic competition,
argued that a world containing such differentiation was superior to that portrayed by the perfect competition
model. “Differences in tastes, desires, incomes and locations of buyers, and differences in the uses which
they make of commodities all indicate the need for variety and the necessity of substituting for the concept
of a ‘competitive ideal’ an ideal involving both monopoly and competition.” See EDWARD H. CHAM BER LIN ,
THE THEORY OF MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION , 214-15 (6th ed. 1948) (quoted in SCHERER AND ROSS ,
INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND MARKET PERFORMANCE , at 32-33); CLARK , COMPETITION AS A DYNA MIC
PROCESS , 4-5; see also nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (showing the price theorists generally
believed that some differentiation was healthy).
397
Cf. CLARK , CO M PETITION AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS , at 214 (noting that attacks on product
differentiation based on marginal-cost pricing standard are “meaningless”).
398
Cf. nn. ____, infra and accompanying text (noting that courts that apply a market power filter
require plaintiffs to show the existence of barriers to entry to establish a prima facie case). The argument
made in this paragraph may seem inconsistent with Standard Oil’s normative premise that above-cost pricing
is the sort of harmful “consequence of monopoly” at which the Rule of Reason is directed. See nn. ____,
supra and accompanying text. However, classical economics did not recognize the concept of “marginal
cost,” and it therefore seems likely that the Standard Oil court was referring to average cost. See generally
HO V EN K AM P , ENTERPRISE AND AMERICAN LAW , at 273 (“classicism knew nothing of marginal cost”). Thus,
to the extent that: 1) Standard Oil’s overriding concern is the enhancement of purchaser welfare and 2) the
existence of product differentiation enhances that welfare, proof that a restraint produces or enhances product
differentiation should not ipso facto give rise to a prima facie case. A contrary approach would produce
absurd results, presumptively banning all contractual restrictions that tend to differentiate a product. Cf.
NCAA, 468 U.S. at 102 (suggesting that contractual restrictions that limit competition for players are
procompetitive efforts to differentiate the NCAA’s product).

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 Indeed, even if barriers to entry ensure that a defendant selling a differentiated product

might earn more than a normal return, there is still no reason to treat such differentiation as an

antitrust harm. While the American economy is generally competitive, the prospect of achieving

supra-competitive returns is a powerful motivating force, driving firms to innovate in the search for

that ever-elusive monopoly. Moreover, the benefits of innovation usually outweigh the allocational

losses that accompany any resulting market power.399 Punishing mere product differentiation would

thus sap the economy of its driving force. “The successful competitor, having been urged to

compete, must not be turned on when he wins.”400 While many such innovations are technological

(the better mousetrap), others require non-standard contracts, as when franchisees agree to be open

from seven until eleven or to serve Coca Cola instead of Pepsi.401 Moreover, all innovations are

worthless unless consumers know about them, and non-standard contracts often facilitate promotion

and advertising.402 Even price theorists recognized that technological innovations that result in

product differentiation are “competitive” because they enhance the welfare of consumers who of

course have varying preferences.403 Like new technologies, non-standard contracts can qualify as

399
See Hayek, Meaning of Competition, at 101 (“A person who possesses the exclusive knowledge
or skill which enables him to reduce the cost of production of a commodity by 50 percent still renders an
enormous service to society if he enters its production and reduces its price by only 25 percent – not only
through that price reduction but also through his additional savings of cost. But it is only through
competition that we can assume that these possible savings will be realized.”); Oliver Williamson, Economies
As An Antitrust Defense Revisited, 125 U. Pa. L. Rev. 699 (1977).
400
See United States v. Aluminum Company Of America, 148 U.S. 416, 430 (2d Cir. 1945) (L. Hand,
J.). See also Will v. Comprehensive Accounting, 776 F.2d 665, 673 n. 4 (7th Cir. 1985).
401
See Martino v. McDonald’s System, Inc., 625 F. Supp. 356 (N.D. Ill. 1985) (evaluating
requirement that McDonald’s franchisees serve Coca-Cola).
402
See Hayek, Meaning of Competition, at 96.
403
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

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“innovations,” helping to create a new product. They can also help innovating firms inform

consumers of their “better mousetrap.” There is no reason to treat such contractual competition any

differently from “technological” competition that takes place “within” the firm.404

B. Balancing Harms and Benefits:

Of course, even if a plaintiff makes out a prima facie case, defendants may still

introduce evidence in rebuttal.405 Under current law, defendants must do more than show that a

restraint produces significant benefits by, for instance, combating a market failure. Instead,

defendants must also show that such benefits “outweigh,” “counteract,” or offset any anticompetitive

harm.406 For instance, if the plaintiff’s prima facie case consists of a showing that a restraint

increases prices, the defendant must offer evidence that because of these benefits, the restraint

reduces or at least does not increase prices.407 This, of course, is the same approach lower courts and

the enforcement agencies employ when evaluating mergers.408 Such an approach assumes that, once

a plaintiff has established a prima facie case, any procompetitive benefits necessarily coexist with

404
Cf. Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 56, n. 25 (concluding that a ban on vertical restraints would lead firms
to “shift to less efficient methods of obtaining the same promotional effects”).
405
See nn. ____, supra.
406
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 113-120; Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.37 (agencies attempt
to determine whether “cognizable efficiencies likely would be sufficient to offset the potential of the
agreement to harm consumers”); 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , ¶ 1507b at 397-99 (even if defendant produces
evidence of significant benefits, the tribunal must determine whether a less restrictive alternative is present
and, if not, “weigh and balance the harm against benefit”); id. at 398 (where restraint produces only minor
benefits, a court should declare it unlawful once plaintiff establishes a prima facie case). See also nn. ____,
supra and accompanying text.
407
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 114; Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 3.37. See also National
Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 693-95 (purported benefit is only cognizable if it tends to
offset price increase).
408
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

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some anticompetitive harm, thus necessitating some comparison of the two effects.409 This

assumption rests upon price theory’s partial equilibrium trade-off model, which economists and

antitrust scholars use to model the welfare effects of mergers and other transactions that produce

technological efficiencies such as economies of scale.410

As shown below, this requirement that courts “balance” justifications for non-

standard contracts against “actual detrimental effects” rests upon outmoded price-theoretic

assumptions, namely, that higher prices or reduced output are necessarily “anticompetitive harms,”

that any benefits must “counteract” or “outweigh.” Application of TCE, by contrast, suggests that

proof that contractual integration combats a market failure should ipso facto rebut any prima facie

case, regardless whether such proof tends to show that prices are lower or output higher than before

the restraint. Thus, such proof undermines the price-theoretic assumption inherent in the partial

equilibrium trade-off model that any benefits necessarily coexist with anticompetitive effects.

Return first to the example of an exclusive territory discussed earlier. Assume that

a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case by showing that the restraint has resulted in prices higher

than those that existed before it. Assume further that the defendants prove that, but for the restraints,

individual dealers would underinvest in promotional services, free riding on the efforts of fellow

dealers. Under the current standards governing Rule of Reason analysis, such proof would be an

409
See, e.g., Timothy J. Muris, The Efficiency Defense Under Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 30 Case
W. L. Rev. 381 (1980); Oliver Williamson, Economies As An Antitrust Defense: The Welfare Trade-Offs,
58 Am. Econ. Rev. 18 (1968).
410
HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY , at 501-502 (describing application of this model in the
merger context); BORK , ANTITRUST PARADOX , at 107-110 (arguing that this model should be the basis for
antitrust policy). See also Wesley J. Liebler, Comments, 28 J. L. & Econ. 335, 335-36 (1985) (arguing that
Rule of Reason analysis should “balance the gains from increased efficiency against the losses from
increased market power.”).

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invitation to further inquiry, as a court attempts to determine whether these benefits “outweighed”

the presumed harm.411 Or, as courts often put it, the fact-finder would balance any improvement in

interbrand competition against the harm flowing from a reduction in intrabrand competition.412

While such an approach makes sense under a price-theoretic, technological

conception of competition, it cannot survive application of the transaction cost paradigm and its

recognition of “contractual” competition. According to TCE, proof that a restraint combats free

riding suggests that the unrestrained rivalry that pre-existed the arrangement produced a lemons

equilibrium and with it a non-optimal price.413 This price was not “competitive’ in any meaningful

sense, and thus not an appropriate benchmark for ascertaining whether, in fact, the restraint produces

net procompetitive effects. Thus, proof that the restraint in fact produces cognizable benefits

undermines any presumption that the restraint creates anticompetitive harm, since such proof

establishes that the prices (and output) that pre-existed the restraint were a product of market failure.

Absent such a presumption, of course, the plaintiff’s case collapses, without regard to whether the

restraint’s benefits outweigh any purported “harms” by reducing prices or otherwise. For, any

conclusion at the per se stage that such benefits are cognizable under the Sherman Act necessarily

411
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
412
See Sylvania, 433 U.S. at 51-52 (“The market impact of vertical restrictions is complex because
of their potential for a simultaneous reduction of intrabrand competition and stimulation of interbrand
competition.”); id. at 57 and n. 27 (concluding that such balancing is an appropriate judicial function).
413
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. See also, e.g., 8 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , ¶, P . 547-
49 (outlining balancing test to be applied in this context); SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , at 333-335 (same). It
should be noted that Professor Hovenkamp would generally eschew balancing in this context and approve
any restraint for which the defendant is able to establish the existence of significant benefits. See
HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST POLIC Y , at 489 (once defendant demonstrates that the restraint advances a
legitimate business purpose, the court should approve the restraint, unless the plaintiff shows actual
collusion or “anticompetitive dealer domination”). He would, however, continue to apply the less restrictive
alternative test in this context. See id.

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rests on the assumption that the elimination of market failure is an unambiguous benefit, and that

elimination of that failure may increase prices.414 Any attempt to “balance” an increase in interbrand

competition against the “harm” of reduced intrabrand competition misses the point.415 Proof that the

restraint ameliorates a market failure by reducing overzealous intrabrand rivalry establishes that there

is no harm in the first place, period, thus undermining the case for application of the partial

equilibrium trade-off model.

It is true that the restraint may have increased prices above those that previously

obtained. But then so would a manufacturer’s decision to forgo contracts with “independent” dealers

and enter employment contracts with its own sales force in an attempt to increase expenditures on

414
See Business Electronics, 485 U.S. at 727-28; id. at 731 (same). See also GTE Sylvania, 433 U.S.
at 54-57 (elimination of free riding a beneficial effect of vertical restraints).
415
As then–Professor Easterbrook put it when speaking of vertical restraints:

“No one can sensibly weigh inter- and intrabrand competition against one another;
they are not commensurable. The reduction in “intrabrand competition” is the source of the
competitive benefit that helps one product compete against another. Intrabrand competition
as such is worthless; one might as well complain when a corporation does not have internal
competition to make the product most cheaply. . . . No manufacturer wants to have less
competition among its dealers for the sake of less competition. The reduction in dealers’
rivalry in the price dimension is just the tool the manufacturer uses to induce greater
competition in the service dimension. As I spelled out above, restricted dealing alters the
product’s attributes. There is no “less” in one column to “balance against a gain” in the
other, any more than the manufacturer’s sole prerogative to decide what physical product
to make creates a “reduction in intrabrand competition.”

See Easterbrook, Vertical Arrangements and the Rule of Reason, 53 ANTITRUST L. J. at 155-56; Richard A.
Posner, The Next Step in the Antitrust Treatment of Restricted Distribution: Per Se Legality, 48 U. CHI . L.
REV . 6, 18-21 (1981). See also Alan J. Meese, Antitrust Balancing In A (Near) Coasean World: The Case
of Franchise Tying Contracts, 95 MICH. L. REV . 111, 141-42 (1996) (proof that a franchise tying contract
produces significant benefits rebuts any presumption that the agreement is the result of forcing and should
entitle the defendant to judgment).

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promotion.416 Both forms of (contractual) competition would result in price increases. Each price

increase would be entirely procompetitive, however, and neither would depend upon any exercise

of market power. There is, therefore, simply no reason to ask whether the benefits of these

arrangements outweigh the purported “harms” of such higher prices.

Similar analysis applies to the ancillary and “naked” horizontal price restraints

discussed earlier.417 As suggested above, the ancillary restraint between members of the Hercules

venture could prevent some members of the venture from free riding on the goodwill associated with

the venture trademark and driving prices so low that the venture could not sustain an optimal level

of service quality and advertising. 418 Here again current law and scholarly opinion would require

courts to determine whether any benefits produced by such restraints offset the harms presumed once

416
See Bork, Rule of Reason, 75 YALE L. J. 438 (“since there is presently no antitrust objection to the
most efficient utilization of local sales effort by ownership integrated firms, there seems no reason to
discriminate against the achievement of the same objective by contract-integrated systems through the use
of market division agreements”). See also Illinois Corporate Travel v. United Air Lines, 806 F.2d 722, 727
(7th Cir. 1986) (“The question is not whether the arrangement affects moment-to-moment rivalry in a way
that raises today’s prices, but whether this effect is associated with potential benefits to consumers that are
worth the price. Higher quality may come with higher prices. The antitrust laws do not adopt a model of
atomistic competition that condemns all organization; otherwise they would forbid Sears to tell the managers
of its stores what prices to charge.”) (emphasis added); Chicago Railroad Co. v. Pullman Car Co., 139 U.S.
79, 89 (1891) (finding contract granting one company the exclusive right to obtain sleeping cars valid at
common law because “[the defendant’s] duty, as a carrier of passengers, was to make suitable provisions for
their comfort and safety. Instead of furnishing its own drawing room and sleeping cars, as it might have
done, it employed the plaintiff, whose special business was to provide cars of that character”); Addyston
Pipe, 85 F. at 287 (suggesting that such a contract would be valid under the Sherman Act because “The
railroad company . . . may secure to the sleeping-car company the same freedom from competition that it
would have itself in discharging its duty.”); Walsh, 58 N.Y. Supp. at 93 (minimum rpm not an unlawful
restraint of trade because “the defendant would have the right to establish agencies for the sale of goods, or
to employ others to sell them; at such prices as the manufacturer should designate”).
417
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
418
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

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a plaintiff established a prima facie case.419 However, proof that the venture in fact produces such

benefits undermines any assertion by the plaintiff that higher prices indicate that the restraint creates

or exercises market power.420 For, as described earlier, such price increases may simply reflect the

enhanced quality produced by the restraint.421 As a result, there is simply no reason to “balance”

benefits against harms, since proof of benefits negates the existence of any harms by establishing that

any price increase established by the plaintiff does not necessarily reflect an exercise of market

power.422 Similarly, proof that the agreement between Ivy League universities on financial aid

actually thwarts a lemons equilibrium rebuts any assertion that higher tuition or reduced output is

a manifestation of above-cost pricing.423 Thus, there is no reason to “weigh” benefits against

anticompetitive harm, since the very existence of such benefits undermines any presumption of harm.

419
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. Indeed, Professor Hovenkamp argues that, where
horizontal restraints are concerned, a plaintiff should prevail whenever procompetitive benefits and
anticompetitive effects coexist. See HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 257. That is, he would not allow
a defendant to show that the benefits of the practice outweigh the harms.
420
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
421
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text. See also Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 222-23
(explaining that horizontal price restraints could protect quality of the venture’s product by preventing price
deterioration and ensuring members adequate return on their investments in quality); Polk Bros, 776 F.2d
at 190 (covenant restricting products that each party could sell could enhance welfare by encouraging
investment in promotion by each party); Visa SLC, 36 F.3d at 970 (exclusion of competitor from joint venture
could prevent latecomer from reaping benefits of members’ investments and thus encourage initial
investment in the venture product).
422
The same analysis would apply, it should be noted, if the restraint in question was an ancillary
horizontal division of territories. See Topco, 405 U.S. at passim; nn. ____, supra (collecting authorities
showing that such restraints can combat market failure and thus encourage optimal promotion).
One need not rely upon the assertion by Judge Bork that such balancing is beyond judicial capacity.
See Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at 229, n. 11. The point of the argument in the text is that, regardless of the
capacity of courts, such balancing is premised upon the false assumption that procompetitive benefits
necessarily coexist with anticompetitive effects.
423
See nn. ____, supra.

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While the plaintiff should be free to prove that any benefits produced by the restraint are illusory,424

a tribunal should not allow the plaintiff simply to rest on its initial proof that the restraint produces

“actual detrimental effects,” hoping that the fact-finder will strike a balance in its favor.

It will not do to argue, as some have, that such claims of benefits necessarily depend

upon the possession of market power with the result that some balancing is inevitable.425 They do

not. Numerous horizontal restraints on price and output exist despite the apparent absence of any

market power.426 In a world of perfect competition, it is true, no firm or subset of firms can affect

424
See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 117-119 (finding that restraint did not in fact produce the benefits that the
defendants touted); Law, 134 F. 3d 1020-24 (same).
425
See SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 211 (stating that the possession of market
power was implicit in defendants’ characterization of the justification in NCAA); Herbert Hovenkamp,
Competitor Collaboration after California Dental Association, 2000 U. Chi. Leg. F. 149, 179-180 (arguing
that the justifications offered in NCAA necessarily contemplated a “market-wide output decrease” and
“depends on the exercise of market power”); National Society of Professional Engineers, 435 U.S. at 692-95
(rejecting justification as necessarily depending upon ability to price above the “competitive” level); see also
7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST at ¶ 1504, pp. 380-81 (justification in Professional Engineers depended upon
existence of non-competitive pricing).
The assertion that the restraints in NCAA necessarily depended upon the exercise of market power
seems particularly difficult to accept, given their humble origins. The NCAA first adopted restraints on
output in 1951, long before college football had any conceivable market power. See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 89-
91 (detailing origins of the restraints). Moreover, for reasons explained in the text, and by the Court itself,
not every instance of cooperation between competitors that affects price or output involves an exercise of
market power. See NCAA, 468 U.S. at 101-102 (concluding that some horizontal cooperation, including an
agreement not to pay athletes a salary, is necessary to create and enhance the product of college football).
See also n. ____, infra (describing various horizontal restraints that cannot be explained as attempts to
acquire or exercise market power).
426
See e.g., Topco, 405 U.S. at passim (declaring unlawful ancillary horizontal restraint among firms
with 6% share of relevant market); Rothery Storage, 792 F.2d at passim (evaluating restraint ancillary to joint
venture among firms with 6% of the relevant market); Polk Bros, 776 F.2d at passim (evaluating restraint
ancillary to formation of a shopping center selling appliances and lawn care products).
Similarly, some college sports leagues have adopted horizontal restrictions on competition for
athletes more stringent than those mandated by the NCAA. Members of the Patriot League, for instance,
have agreed not to grant athletic scholarships in all sports except basketball. See Mark Asher & Seth
Emerson, American to Leave CAA for the Patriot League, Wash. Post, Apr. 25, 2000, at D-1; About The
Patriot League <http://www/patriotleague.org/aboutpl.htm>. These restrictions obviously reduce the price
that these schools pay for the services of hundreds of athletes. See Law, 134 F.3d at 1020 (finding proof that
salary cap had reduced salaries of “restricted earnings coaches” sufficed to establish a prima facie case).

131
the price or output of their own products through contractual restraint or otherwise. In this world,

any change in a firm’s price will cause all consumers to shift to other products which, by hypothesis,

are perfect substitutes. In the real world, however, substitutes are rarely perfect, and firms are

constantly striving to build a new mousetrap and convince consumers that it is better. Such quality

improvements cost money, and improvements that are cost-justified will win over consumers, even

if prices are higher than those of “substitutes.”427 Contractual integration can play an important role

in this process, as firms moderate rivalry that undermines attempts at differentiation or thwarts

efforts to communicate such differentiation to consumers.428 At any given time, of course, several

firms within the same market may be pursuing such strategies; others might be pondering entry or

extension of product lines. The end result is a market full of differentiated products, serving the

various needs of consumers. While economists generally assume that such differentiation creates

market power, it need not; a firm with a loyal customer base may lose most of those customers

tomorrow to an innovative substitute.429 Moreover, a firm may create a new product expecting a

loyal customer base, only to find that most view its innovation with relative indifference. All firms

Is it possible that Army, Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy have “market power”
in the market for collegiate sports talent? Moreover, numerous law firm partnerships and physician practices
set prices and bind their members to non-compete agreements and other ancillary restraints. Do each of these
firms have “market power?”
427
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
428
See NCAA, Sylvania. See also nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (describing role that non-
standard contracts can play in enhancing product differentiation).
429
See nn. ____ supra and accompanying text (arguing that firms with differentiated products may
not possess market power due to existence of substitutes that lure away once loyal consumers). See also
SCHUMPETER , CAPITALISM , SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY , at 80-86.

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hope that their efforts lead to market power, but such efforts are equally consistent with the

achievement of a normal return and marginal cost pricing.430

This is not to say that balancing is never a valid method of evaluating a defendants’

justification for a restraint that is apparently detrimental. Where a restraint purportedly creates

benefits that are technological in origin, ostensibly reducing the cost of production, such balancing

pursuant to the partial equilibrium model is certainly in order. If, for instance, defendants claim that

an apparently anticompetitive merger will result in economies of scale and thus reduce the unit cost

of production, courts should weigh those benefits against any anticompetitive harms the transaction

might create.431 For, unlike those instances in which a restraint purportedly attenuates a market

failure, the creation of technological efficiencies by merger does not ipso facto undermine a

plaintiff’s prima facie case, and application of the partial equilibrium trade off model is appropriate.

By their very nature, such efficiencies produce lower costs of production that can logically coexist

with the exercise of market power. Thus, the presence of such efficiencies does not explain or rebut

proof that the transaction produces actual detrimental effects.432

430
See also nn. ___, supra and accompanying text (arguing that existence of market power implied
by monopolistic competition should not itself establish a prima facie case); Hayek, Meaning of Competition,
at 104-105.
431
See 1992 Joint Merger Guidelines, § 4.0; HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 501-502.
The exact nature of such weighing will depend upon the normative premise that one adopts. If the antitrust
statutes merely outlaw those transactions that result in a net reduction in social wealth, courts will want to
balance any cost savings against the deadweight allocative losses resulting from a transaction. See
Williamson, Economies As An Antitrust Defense, 58 Amer. Econ. Rev. at passim. If, on the other hand, these
statutes outlaw any transaction that results in higher consumer prices, courts should determine whether the
efficiencies in question are so large that they offset any increase in market power, thus preventing a price
increase. See HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY , at 502-503; 1992 Joint Merger Guidelines
(Amended in 1997), § 4.0.
432
See generally, Williamson, Economies As An Antitrust Defense: The Welfare Trade-Offs, 58 Amer.
Econ. Rev. 18 (1968).

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 C. The Less Restrictive Alternative:

Under current law, proof that a restraint’s benefits outweigh the harms identified by

the plaintiff will not necessarily sustain it. For, courts and the enforcement agencies uniformly

declare such restraints unlawful if the plaintiff can demonstrate a “less restrictive alternative” that

will produce the same benefits as the restraint.433 Many scholars have gone even further, arguing that

proof that an alternative produces “nearly” the same benefits or “adequately” advances defendants’

objective, should suffice.434 Application of such a test, it is said, ensures that defendants achieve

their objectives with as little harm to “competition” as possible.435

433
See Re/Max, Inc., 173 F.3d at 1015 (rejecting claim that price fixing was necessary to protect
investment in employees where such benefits could be realized via less restrictive alternative of long term
contracts and covenants not to compete); Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership, 961 F.2d at 675-
76 (declaring restriction on output of televised games unlawful where same benefits could be achieved by
charging members of venture a fee for every game broadcast); General Leaseways, Inc. v. National Truck
Leasing Assoc., 744 F.2d 588, 592 (7th Cir. 1984) (finding that horizontal allocation of territories was not
justified by desire to prevent free riding by members on provision of repair services because venture could
and did charge members for such services); Mackey v. N.F.L., 543 F.2d 606, 621 (8th Cir. 1976) (finding
limits on free agency unreasonable in light of purported less restrictive alternatives). See also nn. ____,
supra (collecting other judicial, executive and scholarly authorities endorsing use of the less restrictive
alternative test). It should be emphasized that scholars do not distinguish between vertical and horizontal
restraints on this score. See, e.g., HO V EN K AM P , FEDERAL ANTITRUST POLICY, at 489; 8 AREEDA , ANTITRUST
LAW ¶ 1649d3, pp. 557-58.
434
See, 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1505, p. 383; id. at ¶ 1507b; SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , THE
LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 223 (courts should ask whether less restrictive alternative proffered by the
plaintiff is “nearly as effective”); Sullivan, Viability Of Horizontal Restraints Law, 75 Calif. L. Rev.
at 851. Moreover, Professor Hovenkamp has suggested on one occasion that less restrictive alternatives
need not be equally effective. See HO V EN K AM P , 11 ANTITRUST LAW , ¶ 1912i, p. 302 (“If a defendant
succeeds [in showing that a restraint produces benefits], then the plaintiff is permitted to show that the same
(or nearly the same) procompetitive benefits could be achieved by a realistic, less restrictive alternative).
In a subsequent work, however, he indicates that a less restrictive alternative should serve the purported
objective equally well. See HO V EN K AM P , ANTITRUST POLICY, at 257 (asking whether the “same efficiencies”
can be achieved via a less restrictive means).
435
See, e.g., 7 AREEDA , ANTITRUST , ¶ 1505, p. 384 (application of less restrictive alternative test
determines whether defendants’ “objective [can] be achieved as well without restraining competition so
much”). See also nn. ___, supra and accompanying text.

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 The less restrictive alternative test is plainly flawed, resting, as it does, on an

outmoded, price-theoretic model of “competition.” To begin with, many of the less restrictive

alternatives posited by courts and scholars are either less effective, more expensive to administer,

or both.436 Indeed, many scholarly proponents of this test admit as much, contending that plaintiffs

should prevail if they show that an alternative will advance an objective “nearly as much” as the

challenged restraint, or further it “adequately.”437 Adoption of such alternatives, it is said, would

render the market in question more “competitive.”438

Given the vision of “competition” suggested by TCE and the recognition that less

restrictive alternatives are likely less effective, there is no reason to believe that such alternatives are

in fact more “competitive” than restraints under challenge. An assertion that alternatives are more

competitive depends upon the assumption that the restraints in question actually injure competition

in the first place. To be sure, proof that defendants could have adopted a less restrictive and less

effective restraint is consistent with the hypothesis that the restraint exercises or creates market

436
See, e.g., Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L.J. at 487, n. 109 (arguing that alternatives proffered
for horizontal allocation of territories are generally less effective at achieving the proffered benefits); Meese,
Tying Meets the New Institutional Economics, 146 U. Penn. L. Rev. at 71-86 (canvassing various less
restrictive alternatives to tying contracts and showing that such alternatives are generally less effective as
well); Meese , Price Theory And Vertical Restraints, 45 UCLA L. Rev. at 189-95 (showing that various less
restrictive alternatives often proffered for vertical restraints are also less effective); WILLIAMSON , ECON OM IC
INSTITUTIONS, at 187 (arguing that various less restrictive alternatives to vertical distribution restraints are
also less effective); Easterbrook, Limits Of Antitrust, 63 Tex. L. Rev. at 9 (arguing that less restrictive
alternatives are often more costly to administer); Victor P. Goldberg, The Law And Economics Of Vertical
Restrictions: A Relational Perspective, 58 Tex. L. Rev. 91, 107(1979) (less restrictive alternatives to vertical
distribution restraints are also less effective); Bork, Market Division, 75 Yale L. J. at 465-69 (discussing
various alternatives and arguing that they are generally less effective).

437
See n. ____, supra and accompanying text.
438
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.

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power, and that the benefits it creates coexist with anticompetitive harm. However, such proof is

at least equally consistent with an alternative hypothesis, namely, that the defendants are attempting

to minimize market failure at the lowest cost possible and that the restraints are unrelated to any

exercise of market power.439 Such a cost-minimizing business strategy is exactly the sort of

(contractual) “competition” that TCE suggests is necessary to maximize society’s welfare.440

Moreover, while such a strategy limits rivalry between firms bound by the restraint, it does not

depend upon the possession or attempt to obtain market power. Thus, by itself, proof that the seller

could have employed a less restrictive, less effective alternative is entirely consistent with the

defendants’ assertion that any “detrimental effects” produced by the restraint reflect a correction of

preexisting market failure and not any anticompetitive harm.441 Proof of such an alternative cannot

by itself support a conclusion that procompetitive and anticompetitive effects coexist.442 Any

reduction in “competition” is entirely illusory, then, and there is no reason to require the defendants

to achieve their objectives via a “less anticompetitive means.”

Consider, as just one example, the so-called area of primary responsibility, often

touted as an alternative to vertically-imposed exclusive territories or exclusive territories created

439
See e.g. Meese, Tying Meets The New Institutional Economics, 146 U. Penn. L. Rev. at 71-86
(arguing that failure to adopt less restrictive alternatives to tying contracts is consistent with cost-minimizing
objective); Meese, Price Theory And Vertical Restraints, 45 UCLA L. Rev. at 192-93 (failure to adopt less
restrictive but less effective alternative to vertical restraint suggests parties are attempting to minimize
transaction costs).
440
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text.
441
See nn. ____, supra and accompanying text (arguing that proof that a restraint increases prices is
consistent with the assertion that a restraint combats a market failure).
442
See nn. ____, supra (collecting authorities holding that evidence equally consistent with a
procompetitive justification cannot support a judgment against a defendant).

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ancillary to a joint venture between competitors.443 Such restraints assign dealers or venture

members a particular area in which they must make their “best efforts” to promote the venture

product. In this way, it is said, a manufacturer or venture can further its legitimate interest in

promotion without restricting competition “too much.”444

As many scholars have recognized, however, so-called areas of primary responsibility

are less effective and more expensive to administer than an airtight exclusive territory.445 The fact

that a firm has the “primary” responsibility for one area does not prevent other firms from invading

its territory and thus does little to prevent free-riding. 446 Moreover, there are real costs to determining

whether, in fact, a dealer has engaged in sufficient promotion within its territory, an issue on which

dealer and manufacture will likely disagree, and enforcement of such a vague contractual obligation

443
See, e.g., SULLIVAN AND GRIMES , LAW OF ANTITRUST , at 332 (identifying area of primary
responsibility as less restrictive means of encouraging promotion by joint venture partners); Piraino, A New
Antitrust Standard For Joint Ventures, 35 W.&M. L. Rev. at 930 (same); Sullivan, Viability of Horizontal
Restraints Doctrine, 75 Calif. L. Rev. at 886 (arguing that area of primary responsibility was viable less
restrictive alternative to restraints in Topco); Robert Pitofsky, A Framework for Antitrust Analysis of Joint
Ventures, 74 Geo. L. J. 1605, 1621 (1986) (arguing that the defendants in Topco could have achieved the
legitimate objective of furthering promotion by adopting areas of primary responsibility); SULLIVAN,
ANTITRUST , at 386 (manufacturer can adequately further interest in promotion by stipulating desired service
in distribution contract and monitoring dealer’s compliance with it); Turner, The Definition of Agreement
Under The Sherman Act, 75 Harv. L. Rev. at 699 (area of primary responsibility will assure effective
promotion by dealers thus obviating need for exclusive territories).
444
See nn. ___, supra (collecting authorities).
445
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L.J. at 487, n. 109 (arguing that areas of primary
responsibility are generally less effective at achieving legitimate benefits than airtight exclusive territories);
Bork, Market Division, 75 Yale L. J. at 467-69 (same). See also WILLIAMSON , ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS,
at 187 (arguing that more complex restraints are more difficult to police and enforce than less complicated
ones).
446
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. at 487, n. 109; Bork, Market Division, 75 Yale L. J. at
467-68.

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will be costly. 447 An airtight exclusive territory, by contrast, avoids these shortcomings while at the

same time furthering the manufacturer’s or venture’s interest in promotion.448 Proof that defendants

have adopted exclusive territories instead of areas of primary responsibility is thus entirely consistent

with an assertion that the restraints further competition, properly understood. More importantly,

such proof undermines entirely any assertion that the procompetitive benefits of the restraint coexist

with anticompetitive effects.

In some cases, plaintiffs may establish the existence of less restrictive alternatives that

are, in fact every bit as effective as the restraint under challenge. Even here, however, such proof

should not entitle the plaintiff to judgment. For, the existence of such an alternative does not tend

to exclude the hypothesis that the restraints merely combat market failure and thus produce no

competitive harm in the first place. To be sure, the challenged restraint places a greater limitation

on rivalry than the proffered alternative, and such limitation is consistent with the plaintiff’s

assertion that the benefits produced by the restraint coexist with procompetitive effects. At the same

time, however, adoption of the more restrictive restraint is also consistent with an alternative

hypothesis, namely, that the defendant has made a random selection of one equally effective restraint

over the other. Such a selection, in turn, is entirely consistent with defendants’ assertion that the

restraint combats a market failure, and that elimination of that failure is responsible for any change

447
See Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. at 487, n. 109; Bork, Market Division, 75 Yale L. J. at
468-69.
448
See Bork, Market Division, 75 Yale L. J. at 467-68 (“Market division cures these problems
[associated with areas of primary responsibility] automatically by making the reseller’s interest in local sales
effort coextensive with the manufacturer’s interest.”); Meese, Quick Look, 68 Antitrust L. J. at 487, n. 109
(analogizing exclusive territory to a property right that overcomes shortcomings of areas of primary
responsibilities).

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in price or output. Thus, proof that an equally effective restraint is available should not give rise to

liability.449

Conclusion

Standard Oil requires courts to apply reason to determine whether a restraint harms

consumers. While courts have often embraced transaction cost economics when policing the

boundaries of the per se rule, they have clung to an outmoded price-theoretic definition of

competition when conducting analysis under the Rule of Reason. Courts should restructure Rule of

Reason analysis to account for the modernization of economic theory.

449
There may be one instance in which proof of a less restrictive alternative should be sufficient to
establish that a challenged restraint is unreasonable. If the alternative offered by the plaintiff is more
effective or less costly to administer, then the existence of the alternative suggests that the restraint under
question is not simply an attempt to combat a market failure.

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