Suing the perps also under the Sherman Anti-Trust
Post# of 36728
"The Sherman Antitrust Act (July 2, 1890) is a landmark federal statute on United States competition law passed by Congress in 1890. It prohibits certain business activities that federal government regulators deem to be anticompetitive, and requires the federal government to investigate and pursue trusts."
In 1993, the Supreme Court wrote:
"The purpose of the [Sherman] Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself."
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"A Section 1 violation has three elements:
1. An agreement
2. which unreasonably restrains competition
3. and which affects interstate commerce.
A Section 2 violation has two elements:
1. the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and
2. the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident."
"Courts have employed more sophisticated and principled definitions of markets. Market definition is necessary, in rule of reason cases, for the plaintiff to prove a conspiracy is harmful. It is also necessary for the plaintiff to establish the market relationship between conspirators to prove their conduct is within the per se rule." (With discovery, that shouldn't be too difficult to show in this case)