Word: ponts
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Quick to spot a moneymaking opportunity, Du Pont Treasurer John Jacob Raskob persuaded his firm, back in 1917-19, to sink about $50 million into a struggling automobile company named General Motors. That fabulously foresighted investment, now worth close to $2.7 billion, makes giant E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. the owner of the largest block of stock (23%) of the biggest industrial giant of them...
...Justice Department brought suit to force Du Pont to give up its G.M. shares. After five years of legal wrestling, Chicago's U.S. District Court Judge Walter J. LaBuy dismissed the Government's suit. Ruled Judge LaBuy, after studying more than 2,000 exhibits and 8,283 pages of testimony: "The Government has failed to prove conspiracy, monopolization, a restraint of trade, or any reasonable probability of a restraint." Attorney General Herbert Brownell's Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court,* but with scant hope of winning a reversal: LaBuy's decision seemed foolproof and final...
...Invisible Seen. Last week, in a decision that stunned lawyers on both sides with its bold and unexpected reaches, a four-man Supreme Court majority (Warren, Brennan, Black and Douglas)† overruled Judge LaBuy. Completely bypassing the Government's main charges-that Du Pont had violated the 1890 Sherman Act by fencing off the G.M. market from Du Font's competitors-the court based its decision on Section 7 of the 1914 Clayton Act, to which Government lawyers had devoted only six pages of their 100-page brief and only perfunctory oral argument. Section 7 bars a corporation...
Most cases brought before the Supreme Court turn on questions of law, but the basic issue in the Du Pont case was interpretation of the facts. Judge LaBuy had found "no need ... to discuss legal principles or precedents," because in his opinion the facts did not prove the Government's charges. In overruling LaBuy, the Supreme Court took the same set of facts and saw in them a "reasonable probability" that was invisible to LaBuy...
Ruling that the relevant "line of commerce" was "automobile finishes and fabrics," the court noted that, in 1947, G.M. bought 68% of its car enamels and other finishes from Du Pont, and 38.5% of its fabrics. To show that Du Pont had at least tried to influence G.M.'s buying policies, the court cited letters and memos written by Du Pont officers (none later than 1926). Item: Treasurer Raskob's 1917 report, arguing that purchase of G.M. stock "will undoubtedly secure for us" the entire G.M. market for paints, artificial leather and other Du Pont products. Concluded...