Standard Oil Co. v Federal Trade Commission 340 U.S. 231 case

Landmark Antitrust Case Study Assignment
I. Your assigned cases are posted on BB. Research your case, beginning with an easy source, such as Wikipedia, The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and other similar sources. The use Lexus Nexus (the legal data base) for more details about the case.

II. Use the template below to report your research. Your grade will be determined by the overall quality of your research in conjunction with your analysis reported in item #8 below. Item #8 carries 40% of the weight for the grade of this assignment. The weight for items 1-7 is 60% of the grade.

1. Write a 100- word abstract of the case, including the date of the case.

2. Describe the provision of the US Antirust Law invoked to judge presence of anticompetitive behavior or potential of for moving the industry in that direction.

3. Describe the basis for the ruling and action that pertain to all OR some of the following factors:

4. The extent and trend in competition and expected in the future: Industry Structure and trend and projection for the future [based on the past, mostly]; CR4, CR8 and
5. HHI, specially in cases of mergers
– Market Structure
– The line of product[s] in question (cross elasticity of demand)
– The geographical domain of the product/firm and its relation to “monopolization” or “dominance”
– Trend in the firm’s profits
– Growth in “market power”
– Barrier to entry
6. Describe the “conduct” in question.
7. Non-price Strategies the defendant had used and describe how.
8. Describe the effect of the defendant’s “conduct” on other firms (or the main rival) in the industry.
9. Describe the initial legal action taken against or in-favor of the defendant.
10. Describe any subsequent legal action in the case (such as the Supreme Court), if any.
11. Carefully describe how the model of Structure-Conduct-Performance has been applied in the case under consideration. [The weight for this question is 40% of the grade.]