Copperweld Corporation v. Independence Tube Corporation

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BURGER
• Citation: Copperweld Corporation v. Independence Tube Corporation, 467 U.S. 752, 104 S.Ct. 2731, 81 L.Ed.2d 628 (1984)
• Decision Date: 19 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-1260,82-1260
• Parties: COPPERWELD CORPORATION, et al., Petitioners v. INDEPENDENCE TUBE CORPORATION

467 U.S. 752

104 S.Ct. 2731

81 L.Ed.2d 628

COPPERWELD CORPORATION, et al., Petitioners

v INDEPENDENCE TUBE CORPORATION.

No. 82-1260.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Dec. 5, 1983.

Decided June 19, 1984.

Syllabus

Petitioner Copperweld Corp. purchased petitioner Regal Tube Co., a manufacturer of steel tubing, from Lear Siegler, Inc., which had operated Regal as an unincorporated division, and which under the sale agreement was bound not to compete with Regal for five years. Copperweld then transferred Regal's assets to a newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary. Shortly before Copperweld acquired Regal, David Grohne, who previously had been an officer of Regal, became an officer of Lear Siegler, and, while continuing to work for Lear Siegler, formed respondent corporation to compete with Regal. Respondent then gave Yoder Co. a purchase order for a tubing mill, but Yoder voided the order when it received a letter from Copperweld warning that Copperweld would be greatly concerned if Grohne contemplated competing with Regal and promising to take the necessary steps to protect Copperweld's rights under the noncompetition agreement with Lear Siegler. Respondent then arranged to have a mill supplied by another company. Thereafter, respondent filed an action in Federal District Court against petitioners and Yoder. The jury found, inter alia, that petitioners had conspired to violate § 1 of the Sherman Act but that Yoder was not part of the conspiracy, and awarded treble damages against petitioners. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Noting that the exoneration of Yoder from antitrust liability left a parent corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary as the only parties to the § 1 conspiracy, the court questioned the wisdom of subjecting an "intra-enterprise" conspiracy to antitrust liability, but held that such liability was appropriate "when there is enough separation between the two entities to make treating them as two independent actors sensible," and that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that Regal was more like a separate corporate entity than a mere service arm of the parent.

Held: Petitioner Copperweld and its wholly owned subsidiary, petitioner Regal, are incapable of conspiring with each other for purposes of § 1 of the Sherman Act. Pp. 759-777.

(a) While this Court has previously seemed to acquiesce in the "intra-enterprise conspiracy" doctrine, which provides that § 1 liability is not foreclosed merely because a parent and its subsidiary are subject to common ownership, the Court has never explored or analyzed in detail the justifications for such a rule. Pp. 759-766.

(b) Section 1 of the Sherman Act, in contrast to § 2, reaches unreasonable restraints of trade effected by a "contract, combination . . . or conspiracy" between separate entities, and does not reach conduct that is "wholly unilateral." Pp. 767-769.

(c) The coordinated activity of a parent and its wholly owned subsidiary must be viewed as that of a single enterprise for purposes of § 1 of the Sherman Act. A parent and its wholly owned subsidiary have a complete unity of interest. Their objectives are common, not disparate, and their general corporate objectives are guided or determined not by two separate corporate consciousnesses, but one. With or without a formal "agreement," the subsidiary acts for the parent's benefit. If the parent and subsidiary "agree" to a course of action, there is no sudden joining of economic resources that had previously served different interests, and there is no justification for § 1 scrutiny. In reality, the parent and subsidiary always have a "unity of purpose or a common design." The "intra-enterprise conspiracy" doctrine relies on artificial distinctions, looking to the form of an enterprise's structure and ignoring the reality. Antitrust liability should not depend on whether a corporate subunit is organized as an unincorporated division or a wholly owned subsidiary. Here, nothing in the record indicates any meaningful difference between Regal's operations as an unincorporated division of Lear Siegler and its later operations as a wholly owned subsidiary of Copperweld. Pp. 771-774.

(d) The appropriate inquiry in this case is not whether the coordinated conduct of a parent and its wholly owned subsidiary may ever have anticompetitive effects or whether the term "conspiracy" will bear a literal construction that includes a parent and its subsidiaries, but rather whether the logic underlying Congress' decision to exempt unilateral conduct from scrutiny under § 1 of the Sherman Act similarly excludes the conduct of a parent and subsidiary. It can only be concluded that the coordinated behavior of a parent and subsidiary falls outside the reach of § 1. Any anticompetitive activities of corporations and their wholly owned subsidiaries meriting antitrust remedies may be policed adequately without resort to an "intra-enterprise conspiracy" doctrine. A corporation's initial acquisition of control is always subject to scrutiny under § 1 of the Sherman Act and § 7 of the Clayton Act, and thereafter the enterprise is subject to § 2 of the Sherman Act and § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Pp. 774-777.

691 F.2d 310 (CA7 1982), reversed.

Erwin N. Griswold, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Lawrence G. Wallace, Washington, D.C., for the U.S. as amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.

Victor E. Grimm Chicago, Ill., for respondent.

[Amicus Curiae Information from pages 754-755 intentionally omitted] Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari to determine whether a parent corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary are legally capable of conspiring with each other under § 1 of the Sherman Act.

I

A.

The predecessor to petitioner Regal Tube Co. was established in Chicago in 1955 to manufacture structural steel tubing used in heavy equipment, cargo vehicles, and construction. From 1955 to 1968 it remained a wholly owned subsidiary of C.E. Robinson Co. In 1968 Lear Siegler, Inc., purchased Regal Tube Co. and operated it as an unincorporated division. David Grohne, who had previously served as vice president and general manager of Regal, became president of the division after the acquisition.

In 1972 petitioner Copperweld Corp. purchased the Regal division from Lear Siegler; the sale agreement bound Lear Siegler and its subsidiaries not to compete with Regal in the United States for five years. Copperweld then transferred Regal's assets to a newly formed, wholly owned Pennsylvania corporation, petitioner Regal Tube Co. The new subsidiary continued to conduct its manufacturing operations in Chicago but shared Copperweld's corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh.

Shortly before Copperweld acquired Regal, David Grohne accepted a job as a corporate officer of Lear Siegler. After the acquisition, while continuing to work for Lear Siegler, Grohne set out to establish his own steel tubing business to compete in the same market as Regal. In May 1972 he formed respondent Independence Tube Corp., which soon secured an offer from the Yoder Co. to supply a tubing mill. In December 1972 respondent gave Yoder a purchase order to have a mill ready by the end of December 1973.

When executives at Regal and Copperweld learned of Grohne's plans, they initially hoped that Lear Siegler's noncompetition agreement would thwart the new competitor. Although their lawyer advised them that Grohne was not bound by the agreement, he did suggest that petitioners might obtain an injunction against Grohne's activities if he made use of any technical information or trade secrets belonging to Regal. The legal opinion was given to Regal and Copperweld along with a letter to be sent to anyone with whom Grohne attempted to deal. The letter warned that Copperweld would be "greatly concerned if [Grohne] contem- plates entering the structural tube market . . . in competition with Regal Tube" and promised to take "any and all steps which are necessary to protect our rights under the terms of our purchase agreement and to protect the know-how, trade secrets, etc., which we purchased from Lear Siegler." Petitioners later asserted that the letter was intended only to prevent third parties from developing reliance interests that might later make a court reluctant to enjoin Grohne's operations.

When Yoder accepted respondent's order for a tubing mill on February 19, 1973, Copperweld sent Yoder one of these letters; two days later Yoder voided its acceptance. After respondent's efforts to resurrect the deal failed, respondent arranged to have a mill supplied by another company, which performed its agreement even though it too received a warning letter from Copperweld. Respondent began operations on September 13, 1974, nine months later than it could have if Yoder had supplied the mill when originally agreed.

Although the letter to Yoder was petitioners' most successful effort to discourage those contemplating doing business with respondent, it was not their only one. Copperweld repeatedly contacted banks that were considering financing respondent's operations. One or both petitioners also approached real estate firms that were considering providing plant space to respondent and contacted prospective suppliers and customers of the new company.

B

In 1976 respondent filed this action in the District Court against petitioners and Yoder.¹ The jury found that Copperweld and Regal had conspired to violate § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 1, but that Yoder was not part of the conspiracy. It also found that Copperweld, but not Regal, had interfered with respondent's contractual relationship with Yoder; that Regal, but not Copperweld, had interfered with respondent's contractual relationship with a potential customer of respondent, Deere Plow & Planter Works, and had slandered respondent to Deere; and that Yoder had breached its contract to supply a tubing mill.

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