United States antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly) and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. [1] These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both, or generally to violate standards of ethical behavior. The term antitrust was originally formulated to combat "business trusts", now more commonly known as cartels.
Prohibited anti-competitive behavior
A distinction between single-firm and multi-firm conduct is fundamental to the structure of U.S. antitrust law. Multi-firm conduct tends to be seen as more likely than single-firm conduct to have an unambiguously negative effect and "is judged more sternly.
This prohibition does not condemn monopoly per se but only monopoly that has been acquired or maintained through prohibited conduct: Most businessmen don't like their competitors, or for that matter competition. They want to make as much money as possible and getting a monopoly is one way of making a lot of money. That is fine, however, so long as they do not use methods calculated to make consumers worse off in the long run.
In considering multi-firm conduct, another distinction is also fundamental: the distinction between conduct that is deemed anticompetitive per se and conduct that may be found to be anticompetitive after a reasoned analysis.
prohibited conduct: “restraint of trade",
Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains. To bind, to restrain, is of their very essence. The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates and perhaps thereby promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition.
Anti-competitive agreements among competitors, such as price fixing and customer and market allocation agreements, are typical types of restraints of trade proscribed by the antitrust laws. These type of conspiracies are considered pernicious to competition and are generally proscribed outright by the antitrust laws.
Monopolization and attempted monopolization are offenses that may be committed by an individual firm, even without an agreement with any other enterprise. Unreasonable exclusionary practices that serve to entrench or create monopoly power can therefore be unlawful.
High barriers to entry such as large upfront investment, notably named sunk costs, requirements in infrastructure and exclusive agreements with distributors, customers, and wholesalers ensure that it will be difficult for any new competitors to enter the market.
Competition law, or antitrust law, has three main elements:
•prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business. This includes in particular the repression of free trade caused by cartels.
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•banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others.
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•Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to "remedies" such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licenses or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing.
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The state already has an opinion on record in the SU vs. Emerald city debacle, the uncertainty of access to the highest level of play will cause damage.
the uncertainty of access to the highest level of play will likely cause an exodus of players, increasing their travel time and breaking up teams/ friendships. For the age groups in ECFC, questions about the viability of the club will cause the same issue. The elimination of over 50% of the revenue stream through the limitations placed on forming younger teams damages the financial stability of the club.
Another concern as Wys and the clubs evolve into for-profit businesses, non-profit status,
an organization is to qualify for tax exempt status, the organization's (a) charter — if a not-for-profit corporation — or (b) trust instrument — if a trust — or (c) articles of association — if an association — must specify that no part of its assets shall benefit any of persons who are members, directors, officers or agents (its principals). As well the organization must have a legal, charitable purpose,
However, non-profits and people operating non-profits must comply with all of the same laws which would apply to for-profit businesses.
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Topic: A clear violation of antitrust law? (Read 1028 times)