Aschlafly: antitrust case

2022-07-02T19:38:55Z

antitrust case

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A '''bottleneck''' in [[antitrust]] law is a facility that is nearly essential, such that its owner may not discriminate against rivals in use of it.

Professor Neale, author of A.D. Neale, The Antitrust Laws of the U.S.A., Cambridge University Press, at 67 (2d Ed. 1970), wrote:
{{cquote|Despite the fact that the Times-Picayune case was lost by the Government, the lesson of the "bottleneck" cases in general is clear enough. They establish that if you have dominant power in the market, no matter how innocently and inescapably you came by it, you are obliged under antitrust to take the greatest care not to "throw it about"… If your monopoly consists of some physical facility like a rail or bus terminus or a market building, you must even take your new rival in and share the facility with him without discrimination, unless it is clear that he is physically able to obtain or construct equivalent facilities for himself. As in the Associated Press case, the facility in question does not have to be indispensable for its denial to a rival to constitute a misuse of monopoly power. It is enough that the denial imposes a real competitive handicap on him. The only way to defend business activity which is prima facie exclusionary is, as in the case of Times-Picayune unit plan, to show that it is on its merits a reasonable and normal response to conditions and also that it has neither the effect nor the purpose of driving out or seriously impeding a competitor. Id. at p. 131.}}
''Fishman v. Wirtz'', No. 74 C 2814; No. 78 C 3621, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9998, at *131 n.22 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 28, 1981) (quoting Neale).
[[category:antitrust]]

Bottleneck - Revision history

Aschlafly: antitrust case