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{{Short description|US federal law}}
{{Competition law}}
{{Woodrow Wilson series}}
The '''Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914''' ({{USStatute|63|212|38|730|1914|10|15}}, codified at {{usc|15|12|27}}, {{usc|29|52|53}}),
==Background==
{{see also|Federal Trade Commission Act|Commission on Industrial Relations}}
Since the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] of 1890, courts in the United States had interpreted the law on cartels as applying against [[trade unions]]. This had created a problem for
==Contents==
The Clayton Act made both substantive and procedural modifications to federal antitrust law. Substantively, the act seeks to capture anticompetitive practices in their incipiency by prohibiting particular types of conduct
* [[price discrimination]] between different purchasers if such a discrimination substantially lessens competition or tends to create a [[monopoly]] in any line of commerce (Act Section 2, codified at {{usc|15|13}});
* sales on the condition that (A) the buyer or lessee not deal with the competitors of the seller or lessor ("[[exclusive dealing]]s") or (B) the buyer also purchase another different product ("[[Tying (commerce)|tying]]") but only when these acts substantially lessen competition (Act Section 3, codified at {{usc|15|14}});
* [[Merger|mergers and acquisitions]] where the effect may substantially lessen competition (Act Section 7, codified at {{usc|15|18}}) or where the voting securities and assets threshold is met (Act Section 7a, codified at {{usc|15|18a}});
* any person from being a [[Board of directors|director]] of two or more competing corporations, if those corporations would violate the
===Comparisons to other acts===
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===Section 7===
Section 7 elaborates on specific and crucial concepts of the Clayton Act; "[[holding company]]" defined as "a company whose primary purpose is to hold stocks of other companies",<ref name="Martin" /> which the government saw as a "common and favorite method of promoting monopoly"<ref name="Martin">Martin, David Dale, Mergers and the Clayton Act, University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959</ref> and a mere corporated form of the 'old fashioned' trust. Section 7 prohibits acquisitions where the effect may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.
Another important factor to consider is the amendment passed in Congress on Section 7 of the Clayton Act in 1950. This original position of the US government on mergers and acquisitions was strengthened by the Celler-Kefauver amendments of 1950, so as to cover asset as well as stock acquisitions.
===Pre-merger notification===
Section 7a, {{usc|15|18a}}, requires that companies notify the [[Federal Trade Commission]] and the [[United States Assistant Attorney General|Assistant Attorney General]] of the [[United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division]] of any contemplated [[mergers and acquisitions]] that meet or exceed certain thresholds. Pursuant to the [[Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act]], section 7A(a)(2) requires the Federal Trade Commission to revise those thresholds annually, based on the change in [[gross national product]], in accordance with Section 8(a)(5) and take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. (For example, see {{USFedReg|74|1687}} and
===Section 8===
{{see also|Interlocking directorate}}
Section 8 of the Act refers to the prohibition of one person of serving as director of two or more corporations if the certain threshold values are met, which are required to be set by regulation of the Federal Trade Commission, revised annually based on the change in gross national product, pursuant to the Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. (For example, see {{USFedReg|74|1688}}.)
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==Exemptions==
An important difference between the Clayton Act and its predecessor, the Sherman Act, is that the Clayton Act contained safe harbors for union activities. Section 6 of the Act (codified at {{usc|15|17}}) exempts [[trade union|labor unions]] and agricultural organizations, saying "that the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce, and permit[ting] labor organizations to carry out their legitimate objective". Therefore, [[boycott]]s, peaceful [[strike action|strikes]], peaceful [[Picketing (protest)|picketing]], and [[collective bargaining]] are not regulated by this statute. Injunctions could be used to settle labor disputes only when property damage was threatened. The [[AFL–CIO|AFL]] strongly supported Section 6 of the Act, with AFL head Samuel Gompers describing the law as "Labor's Magna Charta" or "Bill of Rights."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mason|first=Alpheus T.|date=August 1924|title=The Labor Clauses of the Clayton Act|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400109025/type/journal_article|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=18|issue=3|pages=489–512|doi=10.2307/1944172|jstor=1944172 |s2cid=147281286 |issn=0003-0554}}</ref>
The Supreme Court ruled in the 1922 case ''[[Federal Baseball Club v. National League]]'' that [[Major League Baseball]] was not "interstate commerce" and thus was not subject to federal antitrust law.
==Enforcement==
Procedurally, the Act empowers private parties injured by violations of the Act to sue for treble damages under Section 4 and injunctive relief under Section 16. The Supreme Court has
Under the Clayton Act, only civil suits could be brought to the court's attention and a provision "permits a suit in the federal courts for three times the actual damages caused by anything forbidden in the antitrust laws",<ref>{{cite book |
The Act is enforced by the [[Federal Trade Commission]], which was also created and empowered during the Wilson Presidency by the Federal Trade Commission Act, and also the [[Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice]].
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==External links==
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-3049/uslm/COMPS-3049.xml Clayton Act] as amended ([https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-3049/pdf/COMPS-3049.pdf PDF]/[https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/COMPS-3049/ details]) in the [[United States Government Publishing Office|GPO]] [https://www.govinfo.gov/help/comps Statute Compilations collection]
*[http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/history/docs/90thanniv_program.pdf Brief History of the Federal Trade Commission] (PDF)
* {{cite web|title=Clayton Antitrust Act|url=http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0812484.html|publisher=Pearson Education|
*[http://www.hometaskguru.com/question/view/101232/Antitrust-regulation-is-a-centerpiece-of-American-regulation-How-does-the-Clayton-Antitrust-Act-differ-from-the-Sherman-Antitrust-Act How-does-the-Clayton-Antitrust-Act-differ-from-the-Sherman-Antitrust-Act]
*[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44971.pdf Pre-Merger Review and Challenges Under the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act] [[Congressional Research Service]], September 27, 2017.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070925195746/http://economics.gmu.edu/working/WPE_98/98_03.pdf Why Did The Clayton Act Pass? An Analysis of the Interest Group Hypothesis] (PDF)
{{USArticleI}}
[[Category:1914 in American law]]
[[Category:63rd United States Congress]]
[[Category:United States federal antitrust legislation]]
[[Category:Presidency of Woodrow Wilson]]
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