On this day in 1911, the Supreme Court declared Standard Oil to be a monopoly and ordered the company to be broken up. The decision also held, however, that U.S. antitrust law bans only “unreasonable” restraints on trade, an interpretation that came to be known as the “rule of reason”.
Over the course of the 1870s, the Standard Oil Company of Ohio acquired a monopoly on oil refining in the United States. By 1879 it controlled more than 90 percent of the market. In November 1906, the Justice Department sued Standard Oil of New Jersey for violating the Sherman Act. The action was brought under the Expediting Act in the United States circuit court for the Eastern District of Missouri. After a 15-month-long trial, the court issued its decree of dissolution in November 1909 and its opinion in December 1909.
The main issue before the Supreme Court was whether it was within the power of Congress to prevent one company from acquiring numerous others through means that might have been considered legal in common law, but still posed a significant constraint on competition by mere virtue of their size and market power, as implied by the Antitrust Act. As in the case against American Tobacco, which was decided the same day, the Court concluded that these facts were within the power of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause.
The Standard Oil case resulted in the breakup of Standard Oil into 43 separate companies. Many of these have since recombined; the largest present direct descendants of Standard Oil are ExxonMobil (Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York) and Chevron (Standard Oil of California). Some Standard Oil descendants merged into other companies, particularly BP, which acquired/merged with Standard Oil of Ohio and Amoco.
The Hout Bay Music Project was created by the residents of Hout Bay in South Africa to provide music development opportunities to disadvantage children. Here is an excerpt from one of their concerts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIIQgTIhE2w&list=PLzSz6NxvKpJAiHk1LKjz27By8GnLrLtsD&index=36
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