OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the seventh circuit
No. 96-871. Argued October 7, 1997—Decided November 4, 1997
Respondents' agreement to lease and operate a gas station obligated them to buy gasoline from petitioner State Oil Company at a price equal to a suggested retail price set by State Oil, less a specified profit margin; required them to rebate any excess to State Oil if they charged customers more than the suggested price; and provided that any decrease due to sales below the suggested price would reduce their margin. After they fell behind in their lease payments and State Oil commenced eviction proceedings, respondents brought this suit in federal court, alleging in part that, by preventing them from raising or lowering retail gas prices, State Oil had violated § 1 of the Sherman Act. The District Court entered summary judgment for State Oil on this claim, but the Seventh Circuit reversed on the basis of Albrecht v. Herald Co., 390 U. S. 145, 152-154, in which this Court held that vertical maximum price fixing is a per se antitrust violation. Although the Court of Appeals characterized Albrecht as "unsound when decided" and "inconsistent with later decisions," it felt constrained to follow that decision.
Held: Albrecht is overruled. Pp. 10-22.
(a) Although most antitrust claims are analyzed under a "rule of reason," under which the court reviews a number of relevant factors, see, e. g., Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Soc., 457 U. S. 332, 342-343, some types of restraints on trade have such predictable and pernicious anticompetitive effect, and such limited potential for procompetitive benefit, that they are deemed unlawful per se, see, e. g., Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5. A review of this Court's pertinent decisions is relevant in assessing the continuing validity of the Albrecht per se rule. See, e. g., Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 340 U. S. 211, 213 (maximum resale price fixing illegal per se); United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U. S. 365, 379- 380 (vertical nonprice restrictions illegal per se); Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 47-49, 58-59 (overruling Schwinn). A number of this Court's later decisions have hinted that Albrecht's analytical underpinnings were substantially weakened by GTE Sylvania—see, e. g., Maricopa County, supra, at 348, n. 18; 324 Liquor Corp. v. Duffy, 479 U. S. 335, 341-342; Atlantic Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U. S. 328, 335, n. 5, 343, n. 13—and there is a consid-
3
Page: Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007