UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, EASTERN DIVISION
THORTON ELLIOTT, EUGENE McQUEEN, )
VERNON JOHNSON, MICHAEL CHOICE, )
FAMIOUS FRENCH, MARCUS LYONS, )
DARRYL LANE, RONNIE NELLON, )
CHARLES J. BEYER, JACKIE SMITH, )
SAUL LOCKETT, ZEKE RAND, LEO )
JOHNSON, LAWRENCE RAND, ROBERT )
JOHNSON, LOUIS DAVIS, ANTOINETTE )
JOHNSON, AND HUBERT WEBB, )
)
Plaintiffs, )
)
V. ) NO. 95 C 5440
)
THE UNITED CENTER, A JOINT )
VENTURE f/k/a METRO-CHICAGO )
SPORTS STADIUM JOINT VENTURE ) INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
)
Defendant. ) JUDGE CASTILLO
PLAINTIFFS' MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF
MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
Plaintiffs, by counsel, file this memorandum of law in support
of their motion for preliminary injunction and state:
INTRODUCTION
NOTE:
The core antitrust concern with competition reflects a
fundamental belief that economic questions generally are best
determined in the American economy through a process of
independent, competitive decision making by profit-seeking firms
striving to serve consumers who seek maximum satisfaction through
their choices among market alternatives. Antitrust law aims to
protect economic competition by prohibiting collusive,
exclusionary, and monopolistic practices that restrain competition
and thereby pose a danger of increased prices and reduced output,
quality, and innovation. (The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court
of the United States, 1992, pg. 34).
Plaintiffs, vendors of peanuts outside of the United Center,
bring this action against Defendant, a joint venture which owns and
operates the United Center, for violations of section 2 of the
Sherman Antitrust Act. Defendant currently prohibit all patrons of
the United Center from bringing any food, including peanuts into
the stadium. Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief against the food
ban and granting them the right to compete with the Defendant for
the sale of food concessions at the United Center. Plaintiffs
respectfully request this Court order Defendant to cease and desist
from this unlawful monopolization of food concessions at the United
Center. Plaintiffs are entitled to such preliminary injunctive
relief as set forth more fully below as they have both a property
and liberty interest in their ability to earn a living, have and
continue to suffer irreparable injury as a result of defendant's
unlawful refusal to deal, have no other adequate remedy at law, and
have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. Moreover,
the balance of hardships, and the public interest, clearly favors
plaintiffs.
OPERATIVE FACTS
In September of 1994, with the opening of the United Center,
the owners of new stadium, Jerry Reinsdorf and Bill Wirtz,
instituted a policy prohibiting all food from being brought into
the new stadium. Upon entrance into the stadium, patrons are now
visually searched for food and, if any is found, it is confiscated
by stadium security.
The new policy has resulted in patrons no longer buying
peanuts from the vendors on the public property surrounding the new
stadium and has thus eliminated the livelihoods of many of the
vendors who have historically hawked peanuts outside of the
stadium. To be fair, a limited number of vendors continue to
survive by hawking peanuts (a) to patrons willing to attempt to
"smuggle" in their peanuts in violation of the new stadium policy
or (b) to patrons unaware of the stadium prohibition. Yet even the
vendors who continue to work report significant reductions in sales
of up to two-thirds from previous years.
PUBLICLY STATED JUSTIFICATION
The publicly stated justification for the policy is that it is
a cost-control measure to decrease clean-up costs. Stadium
officials assert that peanut shells increase the costs of clean-up.
To support their assertion, stadium officials point to the fact
that peanuts are no longer sold inside the United Center. While
this argument may appear plausible at first blush, upon analysis it
has little merit. The fact is, peanuts do not increase clean-up
costs. This assertion is supported by two major claims made by
industry professionals.
First, professionals in the janitorial services business
report that peanuts and popcorn are both cleaned up the same way:
a blower is used to blow the popcorn and peanut shells into big
piles, and then both are picked up by hand. If popcorn is sold
inside the stadium, which it is,peanuts add little, if any,
additional clean-up costs.
Second, the costs of clean-up are the same whether peanuts are
sold or not. The owner of one of Chicago's largest janitorial
services companies has stated that in all his years in the business
he has never seen a contract to clean a stadium based on the type
of food sold inside the stadium. Rather, janitorial contracts for
stadiums are determined by two principle factors: (1) square
footage and (2) the number of people in attendance. From a cost-
control measure, it is thus irrelevant whether peanuts are sold
inside the stadium.
ACTUAL JUSTIFICATION
In all likelihood consists of a combination of the following
reasons:
(1) Monopolization of Food Concessions: It would be silly to
ignore the most obvious reason for instituting the new policy: it
affords the owners of the United Center a 100% monopoly on
concessions of food at the stadium. This will result in ever
greater profits in concessions sales for the stadium owners. No
longer able to buy an inexpensive bag of peanuts outside of the
stadium to eat during the games, fans are now forced to eat only
what is sold inside the stadium and only at the monopoly prices
sold on the inside. Some will scoff at the amount of money at
stake, dismissing this case as one of "mere peanuts" (figuratively
and literally), but one peanut vendors put the situation into
perspective when he quipped, "A $2.00 bag of peanuts on the outside
satisfies an $8.00 junk food craving on the inside."
(2) Promotion of Food Sales in the Skyboxes: Arguably, the
prohibition on food also helps prevent skybox owners from bringing
in their own dinners to the skyboxes. Currently, skybox patrons are
not allowed to bring in their own dinners, say a box of Kentucky
Fried Chicken, to the skyboxes; rather, if skybox patrons want to
eat, they are rqeuired to buy their dinner or snacks via either the
skybox catering service or the general concessions stands.
To be fair, this probably constitutes a legitimate business
justification. Stadium owners face huge fixed costs in providing a
food catering service for skybox owners. In order to recover these
fixed costs, it is arguably necessary for a certain number of
skybox patrons to use the stadium's food service. To guarantee this
minimum usage, stadium owners may feel that it is necessary to
prevent any and all skybox patrons from bringing in their own food.
But this justification--call it the "fixed-cost
justification"--is not valid for prohibiting peanuts to the general
public. Even though the stadium owners also accrue fixed costs in
operating the general food concessions, such fixed costs do not
make it economically necessary for the owners to ban peanuts. The
owners would have to claim that the concessions would not be
profitable if peanuts (or other small snack foods) were allowed in
the stadium. This is an absurd claim. The long history of allowing
peanuts inside the old Chicago Stadium, combined with what
qualifies as the normal business practice among the majority of
major league sports stadiums of allowing in peanuts, suggests the
prohibition on peanuts is not necessary to cover the fixed costs of
opearting a general concessions opearation.
In short, though plaintiffs are willing to admit that it may
be reasonable for skybox owners to be prohibited from bringing in
their own catered dinners into skyboxes, it is unreasonable to
prohibit peanuts from being brought in by stadium patrons. In
contrast to prohibiting fill dinners, there is no valid business
justification for prohibiting peanuts.
(3) A Racial Matter: The vast bulk of the vendors are black;
the vast bulk of the stadium's patrons are white. It is not a
stretch to believe that the owners of the stadium may feel that
their patrons would be more comfortable coming to the West Side
with as few poor, black faces greeting them upon arrival as is
possible.
ARGUMENT
In violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act, the owners of
the United Center are using their monopoly control of access to the
United Center and the presentation of live NHL and NBA sports in
Chicago to create monopoly control of food concessions sales at the
United Center.
Peanut vendors compete in the same geographic and product
market as the concessionaires inside the stadium. The relevant
geographic market is sports and other entertainment events
occurring at the United Center located in Chicago, Illinois at 1901
W. Madison Ave. Geography speaking, peanuts are the only food sold
on the public sidewalks outside of the United Center, and peanut
vendors are the only direct competitors to food concessions sold at
the stadium. The vendors sell exclusively to stadium patrons on the
day of the games. Though it is true that the vendors are restricted
to selling their goods on the public sidewalks surrounding the
stadium, they sell their goods solely to stadium patrons and
solely during stadium events.
In terms of product market, peanuts constitute a "substitute
good" that is "reasonably interchangeable" with the other junk food
sold inside the stadium, i.e., popcorn, candy, licorice, pretzels.
By prohibiting stadium patrons from bringing in peanuts to the
United Center, the owners have effectively eliminated all
competition in the market for concession sales at the United
Center. Their actions harm consumer welfare by reducing consumer
choice and potentially raising prices for food concessions at the
United Center.
Not all actions which harm competition is prohibited under
Section 2. Only action which is determined to be anticompetitive is
prohibited. The existence of a legitimate efficiency justification
undermines a claim of anticompetitive behavior. Section 2 cases all
come down to the same question: Are the monopolist's actions
anticompetitive? That is to say, are the actions of the monopolist
meant merely to foreclose competition, gain a competitive
advantage, or destroy a competitor, or are they based on a
legitimate business purpose? Sometimes courts use the phrase
"exclusionary behavior" or "predatory behavior" to describe the
same thing, but whether it is called "anticompetitive,"
"exclusionary," or "predatory," it is behavior without a legitimate
business purpose.
Courts have established two different "tests" to help
determine whether the behavior of a monopolist is anticompetitive.
They are (1) the essential facilities test and (2) the intent test.
Recent case law suggests these two tests are not separate and
distinct but overlap in significant ways. For practical purposes,
however, the two tests are probably best viewed separately, which
is how we propose to view them in this case.
Whehter separate and distinct or one and the same, the tests
are mere guidelines and by themselves cannot answer the ultimate
question, which is whether a certain type of behavior is
anticompetitive and thus a violation of the antitrust laws. That
question can only be determined by a careful analysis of the
particular facts of the case and ultimately comes down to the
question whether a legitimate business purpose exists for the
defendants' actions.
In this case, there seems to be no legitimate business purpose
to prohibit peanuts into the United Center. The publicly stated
justification for doing so is that peanuts increase clean-up costs.
But industry experts say this is a pretext: (1) peanuts and popcorn
are cleaned up the same way, and if popcorn is sold in the United
Center, which it is, then peanuts add no additional clean-up costs;
(2) contracts to clean-up stadiums are not based on the foods sold
inside but on the square footage of the stadium and the number of
patrons who use the stadium.
LEGAL ARGUMENT
Section 2 of the Sherman Act provides in pertinent part:
"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize...any
part of the trade or commerce among the several States...shall be
deemed guilty of a felony..." 15 U.S.C. @ 2 (1988). The offense of
monopoly under @2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the
possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the
willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished
from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product,
business acumen, or historic accident. United States v. Grinnell
Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-71 (1966). In order to violate @2,
therefore, the monopolist must possess monopoly power and must also
use that power anticompetitively.
The primary type of anticompetitive conduct in section 2
cases--and the type of conduct at issue in this case--is a
defendant's refusal to deal with a competitor. The most common type
of refusal-to-deal cases involves monopoly leveraging. Monopoly
leveraging occurs when a vertically integrated monopolist -- i.e.,
a monopolist that operates on several levels of the market -- uses
its monopoly power on one level of the market to gain a competitive
advantage on another level of the market. For example, in United
States v. Terminal R.R. Ass'n, 224 U.S. 383 (1912), a group of
railroads servicing the St. Louis area also owned the only railroad
terminal that provided access to the city. The terminal owners used
their monopoly power over the terminal to overcharge other
railroads for access to the terminal and thereby to gain a
competitive advantage in the downstream market for railroad service
in St. Louis. The majority of refusal-to-deal cases under section
2 fall into this monopoly-leveraging category. See, for example,
Otter Tail Power Co. v. United States, 410 U.S. 366, 93 S.Ct. 1022,
35 L.Ed.2d 359 (1973); Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S.
1, 65 S. Ct. 1416, 89 L.Ed. 2013 (1945); Eastman Kodak Co. v.
Southern Photo Materials Co.,273 U.S. 359, 47 S.Ct. 400, 71 L.Ed.
684 (1927); Terminal R.R., 224 U.S. at 383, 32 S. Ct. at 507;
Fishman v. Estate of Wirtz, 807 F. 2d 520 (7th Cir. 1986), cert.
denied 480 U.S. 934, 107 S.Ct. 1574, 94 L.Ed.2d 765 (1987); MCI
Communications Corp. v. AT & T, 708 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir.), cert.
denied, 464 U.S. 891, 104 S.Ct. 234, 78 L.Ed.2d 226 (1983).
The key to any type of refusal-to-deal case is that the
circumstances surrounding the refusal to deal must give rise to an
inference of anticompetitive intent. Intent is rarely established
by direct evidence. By necessity it is established by
circumstantial evidence: the nature of the defendant's conduct and
its effect on competition in the market demonstrate that the
defendant intended to foreclose competition in the relevant market.
Thus, in order to determine whether a refusal to deal
constitutes anticompetitive conduct under section 2, courts have
developed two basic tests: (1) the "essential facilities doctrine"
and (2) the "intent test." These tests aid the court in weighing
and evaluating the circumstantial evidence in a given case to
determine whether that evidence yields an inference of an intent to
foreclose competition.
ESSENTIAL FACILITIES
The essential facilities doctrine holds that an antitrust
defendant may have acted anticompetitively if the circumstances of
a case satisfy a four-part test: (1) the defendant is a monopolist
in control of a facility or resource that is essential to a
competitor's operation; (2) the facility or resource cannot
practically or reasonably be duplicated by competitors; (3) the
monopolist refuses to deal with competitors; and (4) the monopolist
could feasibly deal with competitors. See MCI, 708 F.2d at 912. If
the four elements of this standard are satisfied, an inference of
the defendant's anticompetitive intent may arise and thus justify
the imposition under section 2.
The Four-Prong Test
Under the essential facilities doctrine, where, as here, a
company exerts monopoly control over a facility essential to the
competitor's business, that company may not refuse to deal with its
competitor, Otter Tail Co. v United States, 410 U.S. 366, 93 S.Ct.
1022 (1973); Aspen Skiing Highlands Corp. v. Aspen Skiing Co., 738
F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1984); MCI Communications Corp. v. A.T.T., 708
F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1983). These cases establish a four-prong test
as guide to evaluate circumstantial evidence to determine whether
the defendant refused to deal with another firm with
anticompetitive intent: (1) that defendant is a monopolist in
control of a facility or resource essential to a competitor's
operation; (2) that the facility or resource cannot practically or
reasonably be duplicated; (3) that the monopolist refuses to deal
with competitors; and (4) that the monopolist could reasonably deal
with competitors. MCI Communications Corp. v. American Tel. & Tel.
Co., 708 F.2d 1081, 1132-33 (7th Cir.).
Here the facts sworn to in Plaintiff's verified complaint
establish each of the elements of defendant's illegal refusal to
deal under the essential facilities doctrine.
Prong-One
The first prong of the test requires that the defendant be a
monopolist who controls an essential facility. Taken in parts, this
prong of the test really has two separate requirements: (1) the
defendant be a monopolist and (2) the facility at issue be
essential. Both elements are satisfied in this case. As the owners
of the United Center, Defendants have a monopoly control over
access to the United Center.
The second element requires that the facility be "essential."
Courts have offered several definitions as to what qualifies as
"essential:"
1. "As the word essential indicates, a plaintiff must
show more than an inconvenience, or even some economic loss; he
must show that an alternative to the facility is not feasible."
Twin Labs 900 F.2d. at 570.
2. "To be 'essential' a facility need not be
indispensable; it is sufficient if duplication of the facility
would be economically infeasible and if denial of its use inflicts
a severe handicap on potential market entrants." Hecht v. Pro-
Football, Inc., 570 F.2d 982, 991 (D.C. Cir., 1977).
3. "[A] facility becomes essential if, in restricting
competitors' access to that facility, a monopolist gains a
competitive advantage in another level of the market--that is, a
market downstream or upstream from the market containing the
facility itself." Consolidated Gas Company of Florida v. City Gas
Company of Florida, 912 F.2d 1262, 1292 (11th Cir.,1990).
Under any of these definitions, access to the United Center
qualifies as essential to Plaintiffs who are trying to compete with
concession sales at the United Center. People buy food concessions
to enjoy while watching the game. If stadium patrons can't bring
peanuts into the stadium, there is no purpose in buying them.
Prong Two
Prong two of the four-prong test requires that the
competition be unable to practically or reasonably duplicate the
facility. Duplication is impossible where, as here, the essential
facility is a natural or actual monopoly incapable of reproduction.
Prong Three
The third prong of the four-prong test requires a refusal to
deal on the part of the monopolist. The United Center has
instituted a policy this year that prohibits all food from being
brought into the stadium. Patrons are scrutinized for food prior to
entering the stadium and, if any is found, are required to discard
the food.
Defendants may argue that the third prong of this test has not
been met because the defendants have not refused to deal with a
competitor. They will argue that Plaintiffs can still hawk their
foods outside the stadium and that all that is being prevented is
food from being brought inside the stadium. But Aspen Highlands
Skiing Corp. v. Aspen Skiing Co., 472 U.S. 587, 105 S.Ct. 2847
(1985) makes clear that a monopolist's refusal to deal with the
customers of a competitor constitutes a refusal to deal when some
cooperation is required for competition to exist.
In Aspen, the Supreme Court held that a competitor's refusal
to deal with another competitor violated the Sherman Act. The case
involved concessions for skiing on four mountains in Aspen,
Colorado. One company had the concession for three mountains. The
other company held a concession for one mountain. Over the years,
the companies had agreed to package ticket sales to permit skiers
to pay one fee to ski at all four mountains if they chose. however,
at some point, the owner of the concession to the three mountains
decided it no longer wanted to package tickets with its competitor,
and refused to deal with it. As Judge Posner wrote, "Aspen
Highlands is not a conventional monopoly refusal-to-deal case like
Otter Tail because Aspen Highlands was never a customer of Aspen
Skiing; the skiers are the customers. But it is like the essential
facilities cases in that the plaintiff could not compete with the
defendant without being able to offer its customers access to the
defendant's larger facilities." Olympia Equipment Leasing Company
v. Western Union Telegraph Company, 797 F.2d 370, 377 (1986).
Prong Four
The fourth prong requires that the monopolist could reasonably
deal with the competitor. This is easily shown. Peanuts have been
allowed inside the old Chicago Stadium since it was first built in
1927. Peanuts are allowed in every other sports stadium in Chicago.
In addition, peanuts are allowed in almost every sports stadium in
the United States. Quite honestly, there appears to be nothing
unique about the United Center that prevents peanuts from being
allowed inside.
LEGITIMATE BUSINESS PURPOSE
A fair reading of the essential facility cases also reveals
that the four-prong test is merely a guide to help evaluate the
circumstantial evidence to determine whether the defendant acted --
i.e., refused to deal --with an anticompetitive intent. Not all
refusals to deal on the part of a monopolist are ipso facto anti-
competitive. Thus, the test only has validity only to the extent
that they enable such a determination. Indeed, the fourth-prong
requirement of "reasonableness" explicitly turns the four-prong
test into a "reasonableness test," thereby bringing us to the
ultimate question of this case, which is whether or not there
exists a legitimate business purpose for prohibiting peanuts inside
the stadium. If such a reason exists, it would make the defendants'
refusal to admit peanuts "reasonable" and thus plaintiffs would
fail to satisfy the fourth-prong of the essential facilities test.
The four-prong test in actuality merely provides a shorthand
formula for inferring the presence of anticompetitive intent when
the circumstances of a case follow a certain pattern.
INTENT TEST
In various contexts courts have employed an intent test under
which a "business is free to deal with whomever it pleases so long
as it has no 'purpose to create or maintain a monopoly.'" Byars,
supra, 609 F.2d at 855 (quoting United States v. Colgate & Co., 250
U.S. 300, 307, 39 S.Ct. 465, 468, 63 L.Ed 992 (1919). These cases
focus on the intent and competitive effect of the refusal to deal
and not on whether the facility is "essential.' Lorain Journal Co.
v. United States, 342 U.S. 143, 72 S.Ct. 181, 96 L.Ed. 162 (1951).
The basis of proving a violation under the intent test is whether
the defendant's intent in refusing to deal or cooperate with the
plaintiff was "to create or maintain a monopoly." Collate, supra,
250 U.S. at 307, 39 S.Ct. at 468.
The semimal intent-test case is Loraine Journal Co. v. United
States, 342 U.S. 143, 72 S.Ct 181, 96 L.Ed. 162 (1951), in which a
newspaper publisher was enjoined by the Supreme Court from refusing
to accept advertisement from customers who advertised with
competing radio station. Between 1933 and 1948 the publisher of the
Lorain Journal, a newspaper, was the only local buisness
disseminating news and advertising in that Ohio town. In 1948, a
small radio station was established in a nearby community. In an
effort to destroy its small competitor, and thereby regain its
"pre-1948 substantial monopoly over the mass dissemination of all
news and advertising," the Journal refused to sell advertsing to
persons that patronized the radio station. The court determined
that, after a close discernment of all the facts and circumstances,
it was apparent that the publisher's sole purpose in refusing
advertising was to foster a monopoly. (Note: this section about
Loraine Journal must be expanded: I must explain that according to
the Aspen Court it was Lorain Journal's decision to make a change
in the pattern of its operation that alerted the court to an
anticompetitive intent. This was also the case with Aspen Skiing.
And it also the case with the banning of peanuts. From the S. Ct's
opinion in Aspen Skiing: "Ski Co.'s decision to terminate the all-
Aspen ticket was thus a decsion by a monopolist to make an
important change in the character of the ..." And then qouting
Judge Bork in footnote 31: "In any business, patterns of
distribution develop over time; these may reasonably be thought to
be more efficient than alternative patterns that do not develop.
The patterns that do develop and persist we may call optimal
patterns. By disturbing optimal distribution patterns one rival can
impose costs upon another, that is, force the other to accept
higher costs." Bork 156.
Which is precisely the situation in our case. A wide-eyed
review of the facts and circumstances surrounding this case reveals
that the defendant's decision to ban all food, including peanuts,
is a willful attempt to obtain a monopoly: [Note; this section must
be filled out. We must give all the reasons for why this is not a
legitimate business move.] (1) The long history of peanuts having
been allowed in the old Chicago Stadium; (2) the fact that an
overwhelming majority of sports stadiums in the country still allow
peanuts inside their stadiums, which shows that it is an ordinary
business practice to sell peanuts in new and old stadiums, and (3)
the complete absence of any legitimate business justification for
banning peanuts reveals that, excluding the possibility that there
is something unique about the United Center which makes it
different from all other stadiums in the U.S., the only explanation
for defendant's actions is an intent to create a monopoly in
violation in violation of sec. 2.
Courts have made it clear that a powerful tool to help
determine whether something is a legitimate business purpose is
whether it is an ordinary business practice. In this case, the
prohibition on peanuts is the opposite of an ordinary business
practice. Peanuts have been sold at, and allowed into, sporting
events for time immemorial. Peanuts are allowed into, and sold at,
every other sports stadium in Chicago. Peanuts have been allowed
into, and sold at, the old Chicago Stadium from the time it opened
in 1927. 22 of the other 25 NHL hockey rinks in the U.S. and Canada
sell peanuts inside the stadium. None prohibit their patrons from
bringing them inside.
In this paragraph, I must analogize this case to the Supreme
Court's opinion in Aspen Skiing. The Supreme Ct. did not even
consider the question whether the mountains were an essential
facililty, but focussed only on intent, finding that a change in
buiness practice and the absence of an efficiency justification was
enough.
POSNER'S OLYMPIA OPINION
Probably want to put a paragraph or two about Posner's Olympia
Opinion and how even a jurist and scholar as cautious about an
expansive reading of the antitrust laws as Judge Posner would
recognize this case as a violation.
1. I should then acknowledge that Aspen can be read very
broadly, but we are only asking this court to read it on its most
narrowest terms, indeed on the same terms as Judge Posner read it
in Olympia Equipment, which is that "a monopolist may be guilty of
monopolization if it refuses to cooperate with a competitor in
circumstances where some cooperation is indispensable to effective
competition."
2. I must quote Posner in Olympia as saying, "Conjoined with
other ethat lack of business justification may indicate probable
anticompetitive effect."
3. Finally, must reiterate Posner's thoughts in Olympia about
the essential facility cases be well-accepted examples of
violations of the antitrust laws.
CONCLUSION
1. The conclusion should be about the antitrust laws trying to
protect consumers. Perhaps quote Posner in Olympia: "Most
businessmen don't like their competitors, or for that matter
competition. They want to make as much money as possible and
getting monopoly is one way of making a lot of money. That is fine,
however, so long as they do not use methods calculated to make
consumers worse off in the long run." Anticompetitive acts like
this one would harm consumers in the long-run.
2.
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