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industry definitions
An antitrust lawsuit is derived from the Sherman Antitrust Act and is any suit filed under federal or state antitrust laws. The lawsuit can be brought by a company’s competitors for anticompetitive business practices, or by purchasers of a product or service, providing that the anticompetitive practice may have increased the price they paid. For example, a consumer may have paid an inflated price because several competitors in a market conspired to fix prices, by agreeing not to undercut each other on price. Or a consumer might have paid too much because a single company abused its monopoly power in a way prohibited by antitrust law. A consumer may have also overpaid because competitors engaged in market division by agreeing not to compete in each other’s geographic markets. Under the Clayton Act, a purchaser can bring a class action lawsuit seeking treble damages, equal to three times the amount the company made through its anticompetitive conduct.
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 – 7) is a United States antitrust law that prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. The Sherman Antitrust Act is a law the U.S. Congress passed to prohibit trusts, monopolies, and cartels. Its purpose was to promote economic fairness and competitiveness and to regulate interstate commerce. The act signaled an important shift in American regulatory strategy toward business and markets. The Sherman Antitrust Act is divided into three key sections: Section 1 defines and bans specific means of anticompetitive conduct. Section 2 addresses end results that are by their nature anti-competitive. Section 3 extends these guidelines and provisions to the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
The Clayton Antitrust Act is a United States antitrust law that was enacted in 1914 with the goal of strengthening the Sherman Antitrust Act. After the enactment of the Sherman Act in 1890, regulators found that the act contained certain weaknesses that made it impossible to fully prevent anti-competitive business practices in the United States. The Sherman Antitrust Act is a law the U.S. Congress passed to prohibit trusts, monopolies, and cartels. The Sherman Act was amended by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914, which addressed specific practices that the Sherman Act did not ban.
Anti-Competitive & Illegal Practices
Price Fixing: An agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods or services are sold.
Market Division: An agreement between competitors not to compete within each other’s geographic territories.
Exclusive Dealing Arrangements: An agreement that a buyer will only buy exclusively from the supplier.
Pay-for-Delay: An agreement between a brand drug manufacturer and a would-be generic competitor to delay the release of a generic version of the branded drug, depriving consumers of lower-priced generics.
Monopolization: One or more persons or companies completely dominates an economic market.
Group Boycotts: Two or more competitors agree not to do business with a specific person or company.
Bid-Rigging: Competitors agree in advance who will submit the winning bid during a competitive bidding process. As with price-fixing, it is not necessary that all bidders participate in the conspiracy.
Unfair Competition: An attempt to gain unfair competitive advantage through false, fraudulent, or unethical commercial conduct.
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