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Sherman Act is Passed by Congress
The Sherman Act was passed by Congress in 1890, two years after Grover Cleveland had wrote to Congress warning them about the dangers of trusts, combinations, and monopolies. This act served to prevent those dangers. One case involving this act is the case of Ohio v. American Express. American Express was taken to court by the state of Ohio for creating contracts with merchants which stated it would not steer consumers into other credit cards. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court -
The Clayton Act
The Clayton Act was passed in 1914. This act prohibits anticompetitive mergers, predatory and discriminatory pricing, and other forms of unethical corporate behavior. One case involving this act was in 2010, when AT&T and T-Mobile were sued for breaking laws under the Clayton Act. The Merger was ended before it was ever needed to be taken to court -
The Robinson-Patman Act
In 1936, the Robinson-Patman Act was passed. This act was passed in order to prevent price discrimination. One notable case involving this act was the case of Federal Trade Commission v. Morton Salt in 1948. Morton Salt was sued for offering a discounted price for their salt that could only be achieved by the biggest consumer retailers as the quantity of salt purchased to receive the discount was so high. -
The Celler-Kefauver Act
This act was passed in 1950 with the purpose of strengthening the laws inside the Clayton Act. This Act prevented companies from doing vertical mergers. Vertical mergers are when are when a vendor company merges with a customer company. An example of a vertical merger would be the AT&T and Time Warner merger which happened in 2016.
