What are the three elements of an antitrust violation?
To establish a violation of Section 1, a plaintiff must prove three elements: (1) the existence of concerted action among at least two distinct actors, (2) that unreasonably restrains trade, and (3) that affects interstate or foreign commerce of the United States.
What happens if you violate the antitrust law?
Individual violators can be fined up to $1 million and sentenced to up to 10 years in Federal prison for each offense, and corporations can be fined up to $100 million for each offense. Under some circumstances, the maximum fines can go even higher than the Sherman Act maximums to twice the gain or loss involved.
What is a violation of antitrust?
Primary tabs. Antitrust violations occur when an antitrust law is broken; laws protecting trade and commerce from abusive practices such as price-fixing, restraints, price discrimination, and monopolization.
What is considered antitrust?
Key Takeaways. Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition. Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities, including market allocation, bid rigging, price fixing, and monopolies.
What are the grounds for an antitrust lawsuit?
In its present state, antitrust law prohibits the following kinds of commercial conduct on the ground that it is inimical to competitive markets: (1) unlawful restraints of trade, which are prohibited by Section 1 of the Sherman Act; (2) the “monopolization” offenses, which are unlawful under Section 2 of the Sherman …
How are antitrust laws enforced?
The FTC’s Bureau of Competition, working in tandem with the Bureau of Economics, enforces the antitrust laws for the benefit of consumers. The Bureau of Competition has developed a variety of resources to help explain its work.
What is another word for antitrust?
In this page you can discover 4 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for antitrust, like: antimonopoly, , anti-competition and doj.
How do you prove antitrust?
A plaintiff must satisfy two separate elements to prove antitrust injury:
- Injury to the plaintiff is of a type that the antitrust laws were intended to prevent.
- Plaintiff’s injury must flow from that which makes the defendant’s acts unlawful.
- Final Remarks.
What must the government prove to win an antitrust lawsuit?
To prove the offense, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant wields monopoly power, and (2) the defendant has used anticompetitive or exclusionary practices in order to acquire or maintain this power.
Who has the authority to enforce antitrust laws?
The Federal Government. Both the FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division enforce the federal antitrust laws. In some respects their authorities overlap, but in practice the two agencies complement each other.
What is antitrust behavior?
Antitrust laws are regulations that encourage competition by limiting the market power of any particular firm. This often involves ensuring that mergers and acquisitions don’t overly concentrate market power or form monopolies, as well as breaking up firms that have become monopolies.
What’s the purpose of an antitrust law?
Yet for over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.
What does the term antitrust mean?
Definition of antitrust : of, relating to, or being legislation against or opposition to trusts or combinations specifically : consisting of laws to protect trade and commerce from unlawful restraints and monopolies or unfair business practices.
What is antitrust defense?
Antitrust laws work to prohibit restraints on free, open commercial competition. If an individual or a business act in a way that restrains open trade, these laws allow the state or federal government to take action.