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Chapter 49 - Antitrust: The Sherman Act
V. ANSWERS TO PROBLEM CASES:
1. In Atlantic Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U.S. 328 (1990), the Supreme Court held
that USA could not show antitrust injury resulting from ARCO's actions, even if it were
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© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 49 - Antitrust: The Sherman Act
2. No. This was a horizontal agreement between two competitors to refrain from competing for
each other's existing accounts. Plainly a form of customer allocation, this agreement was a
3. No. The Supreme Court held that the per se group boycott rule does not apply "to a buyer's
decision to buy from one seller rather than another, when that decision cannot be justified in
terms of ordinary competitive objectives." The Court noted that precedent cases dealing with
boycotts tended to limit the use of the per se rule to cases involving horizontal agreements
4. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that per se treatment controlled
because the alleged behavior giving rise to the case would, if proven, amount to horizontal
price-fixing. The Seventh Circuit concluded that when the district court granted summary
5. Yes. It is well established that evidence of informal communications among several parties
does not unambiguously support an inference of conspiracy. Such mutual awareness, without
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© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 49 - Antitrust: The Sherman Act
6. Yes to both. The Third Circuit held that rule of reason analysis applied and that the district
court had correctly granted summary judgment for Miramax. The court found no evidence
that Miramax had made a promise to give the all first-run rights to Roxy. The arrangement
7. Parts and service are distinct. The Court rejected the argument that, because there could be
no demand for service without demand for parts, the two necessarily comprised the same
8. The Supreme Court held that fire-protection services and burglary-protection services were
not too different to be part of the same market. The Court saw no barrier to combining, in a
single market, different services or products if that combination was consistent with
9. No. The federal district court noted that in order to determine whether e-mail advertising was
the relevant product or service market, it needed to consider whether there were any
reasonably interchangeable substitutes for Martindale's e-mail advertising to AOL
subscribers. The court found numerous reasonable substitutes for e-mail advertising. These
10. No. The Supreme Court concluded that East Jefferson lacked sufficient market power as a
provider of medical services. The Court observed that Hyde's only argument for invoking the
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© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 49 - Antitrust: The Sherman Act
11. No. The U.S. Supreme Court noted that the precedent relied upon by the Ninth Circuit was
poorly reasoned and erroneously decided. The Supreme Court held that a critical element of
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© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
