United States antitrust law in the context of "Sherman Act of 1890"

Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust law (or just antitrust), anti-monopoly law, and trade practices law; the act of pushing for antitrust measures or attacking monopolistic companies (known as trusts) is commonly known as trust busting.

The history of competition law reaches back to the Roman Empire. The business practices of market traders, guilds, and governments have always been subject to scrutiny, and sometimes severe sanctions. Since the 20th century, competition law has become global. The two largest and most influential systems of competition regulation are United States antitrust law and European Union competition law. National and regional competition authorities across the world have formed international support and enforcement networks.

Pillsbury is an American brand of baking and dough products, marketed by General Mills and Brynwood Partners. Pillsbury products include refrigerated and frozen dough products, including the Toaster Strudel, marketed by General Mills; and shelf-stable flours and baking products marketed by Brynwood Partners. The brand originated in Minneapolis in 1869 with the founding of C. A. Pillsbury and Company, a flour mill on the banks of the Mississippi River.

The company, later known as the Pillsbury Company, expanded into the restaurant and frozen foods businesses in the mid-20th century, and introduced the Pillsbury Doughboy mascot in 1965. Pillsbury was acquired by British conglomerate Grand Metropolitan in 1989, which divested the restaurant businesses and sold the company to General Mills in 2001. Antitrust concerns prevented General Mills from acquiring Pillsbury's flour and cake mix product lines, which were spun off, bought by Smucker's in 2004, and sold to Brynwood Partners in 2018. Both companies use the circular blue Pillsbury logo and the Doughboy mascot.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T. R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York politics, including serving as the state's 33rd governor for two years. He served as the 25th vice president under President William McKinley for six months in 1901, assuming the presidency after McKinley's assassination. As president, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive Era policies.

A sickly child with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt overcame health problems through his strenuous life. He was homeschooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard University. His book The Naval War of 1812 established his reputation as a historian and popular writer. Roosevelt became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in the New York State Legislature. His first wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt and mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt died on the same night, devastating him psychologically. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. Roosevelt served as the assistant secretary of the Navy under McKinley, and in 1898 helped plan the successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish Army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, Roosevelt was elected New York's governor in 1898. Because the New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious state agenda, they convinced McKinley to choose him as his running mate in the 1900 presidential election. The McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory.

A trust or corporate trust is a large grouping of business interests with significant market power, which may be embodied as a corporation or as a group of corporations that cooperate with one another in various ways. These ways can include constituting a trade association, owning participating interests in one another, constituting a corporate group (sometimes specifically a conglomerate), or combinations thereof. The term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies in the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and early 20th century. The use of corporate trusts during this period is the historical reason for the name "antitrust law".

In the broader sense of the term, relating to trust law, a trust is a legal arrangement based on principles developed and recognised over centuries in English law, specifically in equity, by which one party conveys legal possession and title of certain property to a second party, called a trustee. The trustee holds the property, while any benefit from the property accrues to another person, the beneficiary. Trusts are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children and other family members, for example. In business, such trusts, with corporate entities as the trustees, have sometimes been used to combine several large businesses in order to exert complete control over a market, which is how the narrower sense of the term grew out of the broader sense.

Pillsbury (pronounced /ˈpɪlzbɛri/ or /ˈpɪlzbəri/) is an American brand of baking and dough products, marketed by General Mills and Brynwood Partners. Pillsbury products include refrigerated and frozen dough products, including the Toaster Strudel, marketed by General Mills; and shelf-stable flours and baking products marketed by Brynwood Partners. The brand originated in Minneapolis in 1869 with the founding of C. A. Pillsbury and Company, a flour mill on the banks of the Mississippi River.

The company, later known as the Pillsbury Company, expanded into the restaurant and frozen foods businesses in the mid-20th century, and introduced the Pillsbury Doughboy mascot in 1965. Pillsbury was acquired by British conglomerate Grand Metropolitan in 1989, which divested the restaurant businesses and sold the company to General Mills in 2001. Antitrust concerns prevented General Mills from acquiring Pillsbury's flour and cake mix product lines, which were spun off, bought by Smucker's in 2004, and sold to Brynwood Partners in 2018. Both companies use the circular blue Pillsbury logo and the Doughboy mascot.

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was a major American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1987. Initially, RCA was a patent trust owned by a partnership of General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Company. It became an independent company in 1932 after the partners agreed to divest their ownerships in settling an antitrust lawsuit by the United States.

An innovative and progressive company, RCA was the dominant electronics and communications firm in the United States for over five decades. In the early 1920s, RCA was at the forefront of the mushrooming radio industry, both as a major manufacturer of radio receivers and as the exclusive manufacturer of the first superheterodyne receiver. In 1926, the company founded the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the first nationwide radio network. During the '20s and '30s RCA also pioneered the introduction and development of broadcast television—both black and white and especially color television. Throughout most of its existence, RCA was closely identified with the leadership of David Sarnoff. He became general manager at the company's founding, served as president from 1930 to 1965, and remained active as chairman of the board until the end of 1969.

In United States antitrust law, monopolization is illegal monopoly behavior. The main categories of prohibited behavior include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing. Monopolization is a federal crime under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It has a specific legal meaning, which is parallel to the "abuse" of a dominant position in EU competition law, under TFEU article 102. It is also illegal in Australia under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA). Section 2 of the Sherman Act states that any person "who shall monopolize . . . any part of the trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations shall be deemed guilty of a felony." Section 2 also forbids "attempts to monopolize" and "conspiracies to monopolize". Generally this means that corporations may not act in ways that have been identified as contrary to precedent cases.

The Bell System held a virtual monopoly over telephony infrastructure in the United States from around the early 20th century until January 8, 1982. It consisted of parent the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which directly provided long-distance service, while local service was provided by 24 local Bell Operating Companies, which owned whole or in part by AT&T, while its manufacturing subsidiary Western Electric produced almost all of its equipment, which was largely designed at the research and development subsidiary Bell Labs. As a result, AT&T had substantial control over the United States' communications infrastructure.

The breakup of the system was initiated in 1974 when the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. AT&T, an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. Relinquishing ownership of Western Electric was one of the Justice Department’s primary demands.