TWO - The Antitrust Laws and Monopsonistic Forms of Conduct

Summary

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the antitrust laws and describes the wide variety of buyer conduct that has been and can be scrutinized under the antitrust laws. The economic theory of monopsony is examined in Chapter 3, and the question of whether the application of the antitrust laws to buyers makes economic sense is addressed in Chapters 4 and 5.

The antitrust laws include both substantive and procedural components. Our focus in this chapter is on the substantive element. Our examination of the procedural provisions of the antitrust laws is covered in Chapter 7. When considering the substantive provisions, the relevant legislation is Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Sections 2, 3, and 7 of the Clayton Act and, to some extent, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. As it turns out, it is in many ways an overstatement to refer to these sections as “substantive.” Except for Section 2 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits price discrimination, the statutes are quite loosely worded, and their real content has been left to judicial interpretation.