Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-10-2011
Abstract
The Packers and Stockyards Act was enacted in 1921. Congress was plainly influenced by the 1919 publication of a Federal Trade Commission Report on the meatpacking industry. Consistent with the FTC’s jurisdiction and concerns, the Report dealt with deceptive and unfair practices as well as practices that were believed to violate the antitrust laws. The language of the PSA does much the same, mixing the two. Of its seven specific prohibitions, three contain antitrust-like provisions requiring a lessening of competition. Two others reach unfair and tort-like conduct without any requirement of harm to competition. The remaining two reach both anticompetitive and tortuous conspiracies. One of the conspiracy provisions plainly reaches price fixing and market division agreements. The other plainly reaches a full range of tortious and anticompetitive conduct without stating a harm to competition requirement.
This brief essay considers the wisdom of holdings in half a dozen Circuit Courts of Appeal that even those sections of the statute that do not explicitly require harm to competition must be interpreted as if they did.
Keywords
antitrust, packers and stockyards act, competition, harm, federal trade commission, statutory interpretation
Repository Citation
Hovenkamp, Herbert J., "Does the Packers and Stockyards Act Require Antitrust Harm?" (2011). All Faculty Scholarship. 1862.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1862
Included in
Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Legislation Commons, Torts Commons