Timken Roller Bearing Company v. United States/Dissent Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

341 U.S. 593

Timken Roller Bearing Company  v.  United States

 Argued: April 24, 1951. --- Decided: June 4, 1951

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

The force of the reasoning against divestiture in this case fortifies the doubts which I felt about the Government's position at the close of argument and persuades me to associate myself, in substance, with the dissenting views expressed by Mr. Justice JACKSON. Even 'cartel' is not a talismanic word, so as to displace the rule of reason by which breaches of the Sherman Law are determined. Nor is 'division of territory' so self-operating a category of Sherman Law violations as to dispense with analysis of the practical consequences of what on paper is a geographic division of territory.

While American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U.S. 347, 29 S.Ct. 511, 53 L.Ed. 826, presented a wholly different set of facts from those before us, the decision in that case does point to the fact that the circumstances of foreign trade may alter the incidence of what in the setting of domestic commerce would be a clear case of unreasonable restraint of trade.

Of course, it is not for this Court to formulate economic policy as to foreign commerce. But the conditions controlling foreign commerce may be relevant here. When as a matter of cold fact the legal, financial, and governmental policies deny opportunities for exportation from this country and importation into it, arrangements that afford such opportunities to American enterprise may not fall under the ban of a fair construction of the Sherman Law because comparable arrangements regarding domestic commerce come within its condemnation.

Notes