Word: ftc
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...rubber company's tires through its gasoline stations in exchange for a commission from the tire manufacturer. Legal battling over such agreements began in 1951 when the Federal Trade Commission attacked a T.B.A. contract between Goodyear and Atlantic Richfield Co. In 1965 the Supreme Court upheld the FTC, and three years later, it held such contracts to be illegal in every instance...
...FTC charges that at least since 1950 the firms have been "pursuing a common course of action" to "maintain and reinforce a noncompetitive market structure." During a two-year investigation of the industry, the commission staff concluded that the companies have been: 1) controlling supplies of crude oil and refined products through a complicated series of pricing and production decisions; 2) using oil-depletion allowances and other tax regulations to reap huge profits at the production level while running their refining, distribution and marketing operations so cheaply that other companies could not effectively compete; 3) ensuring a sufficient supply...
...result, more than 1,000 independent service stations were forced to close down this year, and gasoline shortages were particularly severe in the areas where independent refiners and marketers are concentrated. Moreover, the FTC contends, many users of gas and oil have had to pay higher prices than if a "competitively structured market" were in play...
...FTC complaint does not charge the companies with conspiring to bring about their dominant market position. Rather, it seeks to make illegal a form of business behavior known to antitrust lawyers as "conscious parallelism." According to the FTC, the companies-simply by keeping close watch on one another-were able to coordinate their pricing, production and marketing decisions in ways that restrained trade. The courts will have to determine whether these actions-which have not previously been held to be illegal-violate the antimonopoly laws. The FTC does not specify what it wants the companies to do in order...
While the FTC battle proceeds, the Administration is considering a mandatory program of allocating both crude oil and refined products to assure the survival of independent refiners and almost all of the independent gas stations. There is also the possibility that Congress will enact a law that would break up the big oil companies along functional lines. Currently, such legislation stands only a slim chance of passing. But if this winter brings fuel oil shortages or next summer brings a repetition of the gasoline scare, sentiment could swing in favor of such...