Caso Standart Oil

STANDARD OIL CO. v. U. S.

221 U. S. 1 (1911)
Mr. Chief Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the court:
[1] The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and thirty-three other corporations, John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller, and five other individual defendants, prosecute this appeal to reverse a decree of the court below. Such decree was entered upon a bill filed by the United Statesunder authority of the act of July 2, 1890, known as the antitrust act, and had for its object the enforcement of the provisions of that act. The record is inordinately voluminous, consisting of twenty-three volumes of printed matter, aggregating about 12,000 pages, containing a vast amount of confusing and conflicting testimony relating to innumerable, complex, and varied business transactions,extending over a period of nearly forty years. In an effort to pave the way to reach the subjects which we are called upon to consider, we propose at the outset, following the order of the bill, to give the merest possible outline of its contents, to summarize the answer, to indicate the course of the trial, and point out briefly the decision below rendered.
[2] The bill and exhibits, covering 170pages of the printed record, was filed on November 15, 1906. Corporations known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Standard Oil Company of California, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Standard Oil Company of Iowa, Standard Oil Company of Kansas, Standard Oil Company of Kentucky, Standard Oil Company of Nebraska, Standard Oil Company of New York, Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and sixty-two othercorporations and partnerships, as also seven individuals, were named as defendants. The bill sought relief upon the theory that the various defendants were engaged in conspiring "to restrain the trade and commerce in petroleum, commonly called `crude oil,' in refined oil, and in the other products of petroleum, among the several states and territories of the United States, and to monopolize thesaid commerce." The conspiracy was alleged to have been formed in or about the year 1870 by three of the individual defendants, viz.: John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller, and Henry M. Flagler. The detailed averments concerning the alleged conspiracy were arranged with reference to three periods, the first from 1870 to 1882, the second from 1882 to 1899, and the third from 1899 to the time ofthe filing of the bill.
[3] The charge concerning the period from 1870 to 1882 was as follows:
It was averred that John D. and William Rockefeller and several other named individuals organized in the year 1870 a corporation known as the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. It was averred that the other individual defendants soon afterwards became participants in the illegal combination. It was chargedthat by the year 1872, the combination had acquired substantially all but three or four of the thirty-five or forty oil refineries located in Cleveland, Ohio. The bill alleged that the combination and its members obtained large preferential rates and rebates in many and devious ways over their competitors from various railroad companies, and that by means of the advantage thus obtained many, if notvirtually all, competitors were forced either to become members of the combination or were driven out of business; and thus, it was alleged, the following results were brought about: (a) That the combination acquired a large number of refineries of crude petroleum, situated in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere. (b) That the combination had obtained control of the pipe lines available fortransporting oil from the oil fields to the refineries in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Titusville, Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey. (c) That the combination during the period named had obtained a complete mastery over the oil industry, controlling 90 percent of the business of producing, shipping, refining, and selling petroleum and its products, and thus was able to fix the price of crude and...