Federal Trade Commission v. Consolidated Foods Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
1965
Citation profile
64 federal appellate · 43 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 203 later decisions (16 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2017 · most notably Federal Trade Commission v. Procter & Gamble Co. (1967), United States v. General Dynamics Corp. (1974)
64 federal appellate · 43 district · 1 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedConsolidated Foods Corp. v. Federal Trade Commission (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 18 (§ 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914)
Relies on Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation Same · Brown Shoe Co. v. United States · Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States · United States v. Philadelphia National Bank · International Salt Co. v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 203 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We hold at the outset that the 'reciprocity' made possible by such an acquisition is one of the congeries of anticompetitive practices at which the antitrust laws are aimed. The practice results in 'an irrelevant and alien factor,' 62 FTC ---, intruding into the choice among competing products . . . .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The touchstone of § 7 is the probability that competition will be lessened. But before a court takes the drastic step of ordering divestiture, the evidence must be clear that such a probability exists. The Act does not require that there be a certainty of anticompetitive effect. But that does not mean that the courts or the Commission can rely on slipshod information confusingly presented and ambiguous in its implications. The law does not require proof that competition certainly will be lessened by the merger. But the record should be clear and convincing that the requisite probability is present.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“We do not go so far as to say that any acquisition, no matter how small, violates § 7 if there is a probability of reciprocal buying. Some situations may amount only to de minimis. But where, as here, the acquisition is of a company that com- mands a substantial share of a market, a finding of probability of reciprocal buying by the Commission, whose expertise the Congress trusts, should be honored, if there is substantial evidence to support it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.