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The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust law enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The agency is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC.
The Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 is a set of amendments to the antitrust laws of the United States, principally the Clayton Antitrust Act. The HSR Act was signed into law by president Gerald R. Ford on September 30, 1976. The context in which the HSR Act is usually cited is 15 U.S.C. § 18a, title II of the original law. The HSR Act is named after senators Philip Hart and Hugh Scott and representative Peter W. Rodino.
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The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act is a United States federal law. Enacted in 1975, the federal statute governs warranties on consumer products. The law does not require any product to have a warranty, but if it does have a warranty, the warranty must comply with this law. The law was created to fix problems as a result of manufacturers using disclaimers on warranties in an unfair or misleading manner.
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In addition to federal laws, each state has its own unfair competition law to prohibit false and misleading advertising. In California, one such statute is the Unfair Competition Law ("UCL"), Business and Professions Code §§ 17200 et seq. The UCL "borrows heavily from section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act" but has developed its own body of case law.
Mitchel v Reynolds (1711) 1 PWms 181 is decision in the history of the law of restraint of trade, handed down in 1711 in England. It is generally cited for establishing the principle that reasonable restraints of trade, unlike unreasonable restraints of trade, are permissible and therefore enforceable and not a basis for civil or criminal liability. It is largely the basis in US antitrust law for the "rule of reason." William Howard Taft, then Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, later US President and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, quoted Mitchel extensively when he first developed the antitrust rule-of-reason doctrine in Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, which was affirmed in 1899 by the Supreme Court. The doctrine also played a major role in the 1911 Supreme Court case Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States 221 U.S. 1 (1911).
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- ↑ 405 U. S. 233 (1972). In that case the Court said:
[T]he Federal Trade Commission does not arrogate excessive power to itself if, in measuring a practice against the elusive, but congressionally mandated standard of fairness, it, like a court of equity, considers public values beyond simply those enshrined in the letter or encompassed in the spirit of the antitrust laws.
Sperry & Hutchinson, 405 U.S. at 244. - ↑ See, e.g., FTC v. R. F. Keppel & Bro., Inc., 291 U.S. 304, 310 (1934):
Neither the language nor the history of the Act suggests that Congress intended to confine the forbidden methods to fixed and unyielding categories. The common law afforded a definition of unfair competition and, before the enactment of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Sherman Act had laid its inhibition upon combinations to restrain or monopolize interstate commerce, which the courts had construed to include restraints upon competition in interstate commerce. It would not have been a difficult feat of draftsmanship to have restricted the operation of the Trade Commission Act to those methods of competition in interstate commerce which are forbidden at common law or which are likely to grow into violations of the Sherman Act, if that had been the purpose of the legislation.
- ↑ Compare All-State Industries, Inc. v. FTC, 423 F.2d 423 (4th Cir. 1970) (requiiring fair notice) with 16 CFR Part 433 (prohibiting practice entirely) and American Fin. Servs. Ass'n v. FTC, 767 F.2d 957 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (upholding FTC rule entirely prohibiting household goods security interests and wage assignments).
- ↑ See Spiegel, Inc. v. FTC, 540 F.2d 287 (7th Cir. 1976).
- ↑ See FTC cracks down on spyware and PC hijacking, but not true lies Archived 2010-12-26 at the Wayback Machine , Micro Law, IEEE Micro (Jan.-Feb. 2005).