Unreasonable restraint of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States)

AND · 15usc1:restraint

Because every commercial contract restrains trade in some literal sense, § 1 outlaws only *unreasonable* restraints of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1 (1911); State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 10 (1997)), evaluated via one of three analytical modes (`restraint.per-se`, `restraint.quick-look`, or `restraint.rule-of-reason`).

Exact element source

in restraint of trade or commerce

Source: docroot/ir/usc/title15.jsonl#title15_sec1; Unicode character offsets [135:168] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9c248965c2c712de1e3f3d52a17be4c90dfdcac5d3f9fea0b7220b164e2c2973.

All variants

Recorded DB variant labels, including zero-count variants
Variant	Description	Merits instance blocks	Distinct cases	Example cases (up to 3 per group)
Unspecified variant	No variant assigned in the database.	0 Satisfied 0; not satisfied 0; excluded context 4	0	No counted merits examples Excluded context examples: /f-supp-3d/351/0698-01 — United States District Court for the Southern District of New York · 2018 — applied/merits; /f2d/589/0451-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 1979 — applied/merits; /f3d/117/1137-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 1997 — rule-announced/merits

How courts decided this element

Annotation blocks, including explicitly excluded context
Case	Element	Holding and scope	Variant	Exact source quotations
/f-supp-3d/351/0698-01 — United States District Court for the Southern District of New York · 2018	Unreasonable restraint of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States)	not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits Mode of analysis and anticompetitive effect of the alleged boycott are not discussed here (the court relies on its earlier decision, 261 F.Supp.3d 430).	Unspecified variant	No source quotation recorded for this block.
/f2d/589/0451-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 1979	Unreasonable restraint of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States)	not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits Court notes plaintiffs would ultimately have to prove an unreasonable restraint (refusal to supply during the 1973 gasoline shortage) but disposes of the claim at the conspiracy threshold.	Unspecified variant	No source quotation recorded for this block.
/f3d/117/1137-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 1997	Unreasonable restraint of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States)	not_reached Excluded from merits counts rule-announced / merits Wang's market-power and no-conditioning arguments were raised below but not decided by the district court, panel, or en banc court; left for remand.	Unspecified variant	A tying arrangement constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade if “the seller has ‘appreciable economic power’ in the tying product market and if the arrangement affects a substantial volume of commerce in the tied market.” Source: `docroot/ir/caselaw/f3d_117.jsonl#/f3d/117/1137-01`; Unicode character offsets [5624:5851] (end exclusive); SHA-256 `a36344b321af95e0282badf90b0d6556447e8cb9d2f401ed27f3a27a49607f8d`. Evidence kind: rule; polarity: not recorded; absent flag: 0; quoted-rule flag: 1 (1 = tagged; 0 = not tagged)
/us/550/0544-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2007	Unreasonable restraint of trade (Standard Oil Co. v. United States)	not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits Market allocation among competitors would be a classic per se restraint if an agreement were adequately alleged; nobody disputed the substantive law.	Unspecified variant	No source quotation recorded for this block.

Court interpretations

interpretation

A tying arrangement constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade if “the seller has ‘appreciable economic power’ in the tying product market and if the arrangement affects a substantial volume of commerce in the tied market.”

/f3d/117/1137-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 1997

A tying arrangement constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade if “the seller has ‘appreciable economic power’ in the tying product market and if the arrangement affects a substantial volume of commerce in the tied market.”

Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/f3d_117.jsonl#/f3d/117/1137-01; Unicode character offsets [5624:5851] (end exclusive); SHA-256 a36344b321af95e0282badf90b0d6556447e8cb9d2f401ed27f3a27a49607f8d.

interpretation

2d 168 (1993) ("Even an act of pure malice by one business competitor against another does not, without more, state a claim under the federal antitrust laws"); 3 AREEDA & HOVENKAMP , ANTITRUST LAW supra, P651d, at 80 ("In the presence of substantial market power, some kinds of tortious behavior could anticompetitively create or sustain a monopoly, [but] it is wrong categorically to condemn such practices .

/f-supp-3d/377/0506-01

2d 168 (1993) ("Even an act of pure malice by one business competitor against another does not, without more, state a claim under the federal antitrust laws"); 3 AREEDA & HOVENKAMP , ANTITRUST LAW supra, P651d, at 80 ("In the presence of substantial market power, some kinds of tortious behavior could anticompetitively create or sustain a monopoly, [but] it is wrong categorically to condemn such practices .

Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/f_supp_3d_377.jsonl#/f-supp-3d/377/0506-01; Unicode character offsets [28564:28973] (end exclusive); SHA-256 8fee9334f8a023bc551820e848c61bbe5abc1278d90533adce759ca603a26796.