United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co.

388 U.S. 365, 87 S. Ct. 1856, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1249, 1967 U.S. LEXIS 2965, 1967 Trade Cas. (CCH) 72,126

Opinions

Mr. Justice Fortas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States brought this appeal to review the judgment of the District Court in a civil antitrust case alleging violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Direct appeal is authorized by § 2 of the Expediting Act, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29. The complaint charged a continuing conspiracy since 1952 between defendants and other alleged co-conspirators involving price fixing, allocation of exclusive territories to wholesalers and jobbers, and confinement of merchandise to franchised dealers. Named as defendants were Arnold, Schwinn & Company (“Schwinn”), the Schwinn Cycle Distributors Association (“SCDA”), and B. F. Goodrich Company (“B. F. Goodrich”).¹

At trial, the United States asserted that not only the price fixing but also Schwinn’s methods of distribution were illegal per se under § 1 of the Sherman Act. The trial lasted 70 days. The evidence, largely offered by appellees, elaborately sets forth information as to the total market interaction and interbrand competition, as well as the distribution program and practices.

The District Court rejected the charge of price fixing. With respect to the charges of illegal distribution practices, the court held that the territorial limitation was unlawful per se as respects products sold by Schwinn to its distributors; but that the limitation was not unlawful insofar as it was incident to sales by Schwinn itself to franchised retailers where the wholesaler or jobber (hereinafter referred to as the distributor) functioned as agent or consignee, including distribution pursuant to the “Schwinn Plan” described below.

The United States did not appeal from the District Court’s rejection of its price-fixing charge. The appellees did not appeal from the findings and order invalidating restraints on resale by distributors who purchase products from Schwinn.

In this Court, the United States has abandoned its contention that the distribution limitations are illegal per se. Instead we are asked to consider these limitations in light of the “rule of reason,” and, on the basis of the voluminous record below, to conclude that the limitations are the product of “agreement” between Schwinn and its wholesale and retail distributors and that they constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade.

Appellee Schwinn is a family-owned business which for many years has been engaged in the manufacture and sale of bicycles and some limited bicycle parts and accessories.² Appellee SCDA is an association of distributors handling Schwinn bicycles and other products. The challenged marketing program was instituted in 1952. In 1951 Schwinn had the largest single share of the United States bicycle market — 22.5%. In 1961 Schwinn’s share of market had fallen to 12.8% although its dollar and unit sales had risen substantially. In the same period, a competitor, Murray Ohio Manufacturing Company, which is now the leading United States bicycle producer, increased its market share from 11.6% in 1951 to 22.8% in 1961. Murray sells primarily to Sears, Roebuck & Company and other mass merchandisers. By 1962 there were nine bicycle producers in the Nation, operating 11 plants. Imports of bicycles amounted to 29.7% of sales in 1961.

Forty percent of all bicycles are distributed by national concerns which operate their own stores and franchise others. Another 20% are sold by giant chains and mass merchandisers like Sears and Montgomery Ward & Company. Sears and Ward together account for'20% of all bicycle sales. Most of these bicycles are sold under private label. About 30% of all bicycles are distributed by cycle jobbers which specialize in the trade, and the remaining 10% by hardware and general stores.

Schwinn sells its products primarily to or through 22 wholesale distributors, with sales to the public being made by a large number of retailers. In addition, it sells about 11% of its total to B. F. Goodrich for resale in B. F. Goodrich retail or franchised stores. There are about 5,000 to 6,000 retail dealers in the United States which are bicycle specialty shops, generally also providing servicing. About 84% of Schwinn’s sales are through such specialized dealers. Schwinn sells only under the Schwinn label, never under private label, while about 64% of all bicycles are sold under private label. Distributors and retailers handling Schwinn bicycles are not restricted to the handling of that brand. They may and ordinarily do sell a variety of brands.

The United States does not contend that there is in this case any restraint on interbrand competition, nor does it attempt to sustain its charge by reference to the market for bicycles as a whole. Instead, it invites us to confine our attention to the intrabrand effect of the contested restrictions. It urges us to declare that the method of distribution of a single brand of bicycles, amounting to less than one-seventh of the market, constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade or commerce among the several States.

Schwinn’s principal methods of selling its bicycles are as follows: (1) sales to distributors, primarily cycle distributors, B. F. Goodrich and hardware jobbers; (2) sales to retailers by means of consignment or agency arrangements with distributors; and (3) sales to retailers under the so-called Schwinn Plan which involves direct shipment by Schwinn to the retailer with Schwinn invoicing the dealers, extending credit, and paying a commission to the distributor taking the order. Schwinn fair-traded certain of its models at retail in States permitting this, and suggested retail prices for all of its bicycles in all States. During the 1962-1962 period, as the District Court found, “well over half of the bicycles sold by Schwinn have been sold direct to the retail dealer (not to a cycle distributor) by means of Schwinn Plan sales and consignment and agency sales.” Less than half were sold to distributors.³

After World War II, Schwinn had begun studying and revamping its distribution pattern. As of 1951-1952, it had reduced its mailing list from about 15,000 retail outlets to about 5,500. It instituted the practice of franchising approved retail outlets. The franchise did not prevent the retailer from handling other brands, but it did require the retailer to promote Schwinn bicycles and to give them at least equal prominence with competing brands. The number of franchised dealers in any area was limited, and a retailer was franchised only as to a designated location or locations. Each franchised dealer was to purchase only from or through the distributor authorized to serve that particular area. He was authorized to sell only to consumers, and not to unfranchised retailers. The District Court found that while each Schwinn franchised retailer “knows that he is an unrestricted retail dealer, free to sell at his own price to any person who wants to buy on a retail basis. . . . [He] knows also that he is not a wholesaler and that he cannot sell as a wholesaler or act as an agent for some other unfranchised dealer, such as a discount house retailer .... When he acts as such an agent he subjects his franchise to cancellation at will by Schwinn.”

Schwinn assigned specific territories to each of its 22 wholesale cycle distributors. These distributors were instructed to sell only to franchised Schwinn accounts and only in their respective territories which were specifically described and allocated on an exclusive basis. The District Court found “that certain cycle distributors have in fact not competed with each other . . . and that in so doing they have conspired with Schwinn to unreasonably restrain competition contrary to the provisions of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.” The court, however, restricted this finding and its consequent order to transactions in which the distributor purchased the bicycles from Schwinn for resale, as distinguished from sales by the distributor as agent or consignee of Schwinn or on the Schwinn Plan. The United States urges that this Court should require revision of the decree in this respect to forbid territorial exclusivity regardless of the technical form by which the products are transferred from Schwinn to the retailer or consumer.⁴

The District Court rejected the Government’s contention that Schwinn had in fact canceled the franchises of some retailers because of sales to discount houses or other unfranchised dealers, nor did it find that distributors have been cut off because of sales to unfranchised retailers or violation of territorial limitations. The United States urges that this is “clearly erroneous.” In any event, it is clear and entirely consistent with the District Court’s findings that Schwinn has been “firm and resolute” in insisting upon observance of territorial and customer limitations by its bicycle distributors and upon confining sales by franchised retailers to consumers, and that Schwinn’s “firmness” in these respects was grounded upon the communicated danger of termination. Our analysis will embrace this conclusion, rather than the finding which is urged by the Government and which was refused by the trial court that Schwinn actually terminated retail franchises or cut off distributors for the suggested reasons.

We come, then, to the legal issues in this case. We are here confronted with challenged vertical restrictions as to territory and dealers. The source of the restrictions is the manufacturer. These are not horizontal restraints, in which the actors are distributors with or without the manufacturer’s participation. We have held in such a case, where the purpose was to prevent the distribution of automobiles to or by “discounters,” that a “classic conspiracy in restraint of trade” results. United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966); see also Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207 (1959); Timken Roller Bearing Co. v. United States, 341 U. S. 593 (1951). Nor is this a case of territorial or dealer restrictions accompanied by price fixing, for here the issue of unlawful price fixing was tendered, litigated, decided against the appellant, and appellant has not appealed. If it were otherwise— if there were here a finding that the restrictions were part of a scheme involving unlawful price fixing, the result would be a per se violation of the Sherman Act. United States v. Sealy, Inc., ante, p. 350; United States v. Bausch & Lomb Co., 321 U. S. 707, 724 (1944). Because of the posture of the case and the failure of the Government to urge the point, we do not here pause to consider whether a case might be presented, short of unlawful price fixing, in which the activities of the manufacturer to affect resale prices — whether styled price “maintenance” or “stabilization” or otherwise — would fatally infect vertical customer restrictions so as to require a conclusion of per se violation. The Government does not contend that a per se violation of the Sherman Act is presented by the practices which are involved in this appeal (that is, without reference to the practice which the lower court enjoined and which is not before us). Accordingly, we are remitted to an appraisal of the market impact of these practices.

In White Motor Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 253 (1963), this Court refused to affirm summary judgment against the manufacturer even though there were not only vertical restrictions as to territory and customer selection but also unlawful price fixing. The Court held that there was no showing that the price fixing was “an integral part of the whole distribution system” and accordingly it declined to outlaw the system because of the possibility that a trial laying bare “the economic and business stuff out of which these arrangements emerge” might demonstrate their reasonableness. Id., at 263. So here we must look to the specifics of the challenged practices and their impact upon the marketplace in order to make a judgment as to whether the restraint is or is not “reasonable” in the special sense in which § 1 of the Sherman Act must be read for purposes of this type of inquiry. Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S. 231, 238 (1918); Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 51 (1911); Apex Hosiery v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 498 (1940).⁵

We first observe that the facts of this case do not come within the specific illustrations which the Court in White Motor articulated as possible factors relevant to a showing that the challenged vertical restraint is sheltered- by the rule of reason because it is not anticompetitive. Schwinn was not a newcomer, seeking to break into or stay in the bicycle business. It was not a “failing company.” On the contrary, at the initiation of these practices, it was the leading bicycle producer in the Nation. Schwinn contends, however, and the trial court found, that the reasons which induced it to adopt the challenged distribution program were to enable it and the small, independent merchants that made up its chain of distribution to compete more effectively in the marketplace. Schwinn sought a better way of distributing its product: a method which would promote sales, increase stability of its distributor and dealer outlets, and augment profits. But this argument, appealing as it is, is not enough to avoid the Sherman Act proscription; because, in a sense, every restrictive practice is designed to augment the profit and competitive position of its participants. Price fixing does so, for example, and so may a well-calculated division of territories. See United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150 (1940). The antitrust outcome does not turn merely on the presence of sound business reason or motive. Here, for example, if the test of reasonableness were merely whether Schwinn’s restrictive distribution program and practices were adopted “for good business reasons” and not merely to injure competitors, or if the answer turned upon whether it was indeed “good business practice,” we should not quarrel with Schwinn’s eloquent submission or the finding of the trial court. But our inquiry cannot stop at that point. Our inquiry is whether, assuming nonpredatory motives and business purposes and the incentive of profit and volume considerations, the effect upon competition in the marketplace is substantially adverse. The promotion of self-interest alone does not invoke the rule of reason to immunize otherwise illegal conduct. It is only if the conduct is not unlawful in its impact in the marketplace or if the self-interest coincides with the statutory concern with the preservation and promotion of competition that protection is achieved. Chicago Board of Trade, supra, at 238.

On this basis, restraints as to territory or customers, vertical or horizontal, are unlawful if they are “ancillary to the price-fixing” (White Motor Co. v. United States, supra, at 260) or if the price fixing is “an integral part of the whole distribution system.” (Bausch & Bomb, supra, at 720.) In those situations, it is needless to inquire further into competitive effect because it is established doctrine that, unless permitted by statute, the fixing of prices at which others may sell is anticompetitive, and the unlawfulness of the price fixing infects the distribution restrictions. Cf. Sealy, supra, and Bausch <fc Lomb, supra. At the other extreme, a manufacturer of a product other and equivalent brands of which are readily available in the market may select his customers, and for this purpose he may “franchise” certain dealers to whom, alone, he will sell his goods. Cf. United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300 (1919). If the restraint stops at that point — if nothing more is involved than vertical “confinement” of the manufacturer’s own sales of the merchandise to selected dealers, and if competitive products are readily available to others, the restriction, on these facts alone, would not violate the Sherman Act. It is within these boundary lines that we must analyze the present case.

The District Court here enjoined appellees from limiting the territory within which any wholesaler or jobber may sell any Schwinn product which it has purchased. It held that these are agreements to divide territory and, as such, are per se violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act. The court made clear that it confined its order to transactions in which the distributor purchases from Schwinn. As to consignment, agency and Schwinn Plan transactions, the court held that, in these instances, “Schwinn has a right to allocate its agents or salesmen to a particular territory.” The court also held that the franchising of retailers was reasonable in view of the competitive problem presented by “giant” bicycle retailers such as Sears and Ward and by other mass merchandisers, and it declined to enjoin appellees’ practices with respect to confinement of sale by distributors or Schwinn to franchised retailers, or to forbid Schwinn and its distributors from continuing to prohibit franchised retailers from selling to discount houses or other unfranchised retailers for resale to the public.

As noted above, appellees have not appealed from the District Court’s order, and, accordingly, we have before us only the Government’s pleas: (1) that the decree should not be confined to sale transactions between Schwinn and wholesalers but should reach territorial restrictions upon distributors whether they are incident to sale and resale transactions or to consignment, agency or Schwinn-Plan relationship between Schwinn and the distributors; (2) that agreements requiring distributors to limit their distribution to only such retailers as are franchised should be enjoined; and (3) that arrangements preventing franchised retailers from supplying non-franchised retailers, including discount stores, should also be forbidden.

As to point (2), the Government argues that it is illogical and inconsistent to forbid territorial limitations on resales by distributors where the distributor owns the goods, having bought them from Schwinn, and, at the same time, to exonerate arrangements which require distributors to confine resales of the goods they have bought to “franchised” retailers. It argues that requiring distributors, once they have purchased the product, to confine sales to franchised retailers is indistinguishable in law and principle from the division of territory which the decree condemns. Both, the Government argues, are in the nature of restraints upon alienation which are beyond the power of the manufacturer to impose upon its vendees and which, since the nature of the transaction includes an agreement, combination or understanding, are violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act. Cf. Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373 (1911); United States v. Bausch & Lomb Co., supra; Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., supra; Fashion Originators’ Guild v. FTC, 312 U. S. 457 (1941); United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966). We agree, and upon remand, the decree should be revised to enjoin any limitation upon the freedom of distributors to dispose of the Schwinn products, which they have bought from Schwinn, where and to whomever they choose. The principle is, of course, equally applicable to sales to retailers, and the decree should similarly enjoin the making of any sales to retailers upon any condition, agreement or understanding limiting the retailer's freedom as to where and to whom it will resell the products.

The appellant vigorously argues that, since this remedy is confined to situations where the distributor and retailer acquire title to the bicycles, it will provide only partial relief; that to prevent the allocation of territories and confinement to franchised retail dealers, the decree can and should be enlarged to forbid these practices, however effected — whether by sale and resale or by agency, consignment, or the Schwinn Plan. But we are dealing here with a vertical restraint embodying the unilateral program of a single manufacturer. We are not dealing with a combination of manufacturers, as in Klor’s, or of distributors, as in General Motors. We are not dealing with a “division" of territory in the sense of an allocation by and among the distributors, see Sealy, supra, or an agreement among distributors to restrict their competition, see General Motors, supra. We are here concerned with a truly vertical arrangement, raising the fundamental question of the degree to which a manufacturer may not only select the customers to whom he will sell, but also allocate territories for resale and confine access to his product to selected, or franchised, retailers. We conclude that the proper application of § 1 of the Sherman Act to this problem requires differentiation between the situation where the manufacturer parts with title, dominion, or risk with respect to the article, and where he completely retains ownership and risk of loss.

As the District Court held, where a manufacturer sells products to his distributor subject to territorial restrictions upon resale, a per se violation of the Sherman Act results. And, as we have held, the same principle applies to restrictions of outlets with which the distributors may deal and to restraints upon retailers to whom the goods are sold. Under the Sherman Act, it is unreasonable without more for a manufacturer to seek to restrict and confine areas or persons with whom an article may be traded after the manufacturer has parted with dominion over it. White Motor, supra; Dr. Miles, supra. Such restraints are so obviously destructive of competition that their mere existence is enough. If the manufacturer parts with dominion over his product or transfers risk of loss to another, he may not reserve control over its destiny or the conditions of its resale.⁶ To permit this would sanction franchising and confinement of distribution as the ordinary instead of the unusual method which may be permissible in an appropriate and impelling competitive setting, since most merchandise is distributed by means of purchase and sale. On the other hand, as indicated in White Motor, we are not prepared to introduce the inflexibility which a per se rule might bring if it were applied to prohibit all vertical restrictions of territory and all franchising, in the sense of designating specified distributors and retailers as the chosen instruments through which the manufacturer, retaining ownership of the goods, will distribute them to the public. Such a rule might severely hamper smaller enterprises resorting to reasonable methods of meeting the competition of giants and of merchandising through independent dealers, and it might sharply accelerate the trend towards vertical integration of the distribution process. But to allow this freedom where the manufacturer has parted with dominion over the goods — the usual marketing situation — would violate the ancient rule against restraints on alienation and open the door to exclusivity of outlets and limitation of territory further than prudence permits.

The Government does not here contend for a per se rule as to agency, consignment, or Schwinn-Plan transactions even though these may be used — as they are here — to implement a scheme of confining distribution outlets as in this case. Where the manufacturer retains title, dominion, and risk with respect to the product and the position and function of the dealer in question are, in fact, indistinguishable from those of an agent or salesman of the manufacturer, it is only if the impact of the confinement is “unreasonably” restrictive of competition that a violation of § 1 results from such confinement, unencumbered by culpable price fixing. Simpson v. Union Oil Co., 377 U. S. 13 (1964). As the District Court found, Schwinn adopted the challenged distribution programs in a competitive situation dominated by mass merchandisers which command access to large-scale advertising and promotion, choice of retail outlets, both owned and franchised, and adequate sources of supply. It is not claimed that Schwinn’s practices or other circumstances resulted in an inadequate competitive situation with respect to the bicycle market; and there is nothing in this record — after elimination of the price-fixing issue — to lead us to conclude that Schwinn’s program exceeded the limits reasonably necessary to meet the competitive problems posed by its more powerful competitors. In these circumstances, the rule of reason is satisfied.

We do not suggest that the unilateral adoption by a single manufacturer of an agency or consignment pattern and the Schwinn type of restrictive distribution system would be justified in any and all circumstances by the presence of the competition of mass merchandisers and by the demonstrated need of the franchise system to meet that competition. But certainly, in such circumstances, the vertically imposed distribution restraints— absent price fixing and in the presence of adequate sources of alternative products to meet the needs of the unfranchised — may not be held to be per se violations of the Sherman Act. The Government, in this Court, so concedes in this case.

On this record, we cannot brand the District Court's finding as clearly erroneous and cannot ourselves conclude that Schwinn’s franchising of retailers and its confinement of retail sales to them — so long as it retains all indicia of ownership, including title, dominion, and risk, and so long as the dealers in question are indistinguishable in function from agents or salesmen — constitute an “unreasonable” restraint of trade. Critical in this respect are the facts: (1) that other competitive bicycles are available to distributors and retailers in the marketplace, and there is no showing that they are not in all respects reasonably interchangeable as articles of competitive commerce with the Schwinn product;⁷ (2) that Schwinn distributors and retailers handle other brands of bicycles as well as Schwinn’s; (3) in the present posture of the case we cannot rule that the vertical restraints are unreasonable because of their intermixture with price fixing; and (4) we cannot disagree with the findings of the trial court that competition made necessary the challenged program; that it was justified by, and went no further than required by, competitive pressures; and that its net effect is to preserve and not to damage competition in the bicycle market. Application of the rule of reason here cannot be confined to intrabrand competition. When we look to the product market as a whole, we cannot conclude that Schwinn’s franchise system with respect to products as to which it retains ownership and risk constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade. This does not, of course, excuse or condone the per se violations which, in substance, consist of the control over the resale of Schwinn’s products after Schwinn has parted with ownership thereof. Once the manufacturer has parted with title and risk, he has parted with dominion over the product, and his effort thereafter to restrict territory or persons to whom the product may be transferred — whether by explicit agreement or by silent combination or understanding with his vendee — is a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act.

Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause remanded for the entry of a decree in accordance with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.

1 B. F. Goodrich negotiated a consent decree with the Government prior to trial, and dropped out of the case.

2 Its parts and accessory business is less than 4% of its total sales. Like other bicycle producers, Schwinn manufactures the basic parts of its bicycles and purchases components from parts producers.

3 Schwinn’s brief represents that presently about 75% of all Schwinn sales are now made under the Schwinn Plan; that there are no longer any consignment agreements; and that only two cycle distributors remain under agency contract.

4 The United States did not perfect this point below, and its Jurisdictional Statement in this Court did not expressly request revision of the decree. Appellees strenuously urge that we should for these reasons refuse to consider the United States’ present argument that the decree should be enlarged as stated. See Supreme Court Rules 15 (1) (c)(1) and 40 (1) (d)(2); General Pictures Co. v. Electric Co., 304 U. S. 175, 177-179 (1938). While we regard with disfavor the Government’s practice in this case, both with respect to the point here at issue and its change of theory, in view of the nature and importance of the case, we shall not reject the tendered issues because the request for the substance of the relief was embraced in the question presented in the Jurisdictional Statement and because appellees have not been adversely affected.

5 The United States, having abandoned its contention that the restraints in the present case are per se violations of the Sherman Act, now urges “a standard of presumptive illegality/' presumably on the basis of a showing that a product has been distributed by means of arrangements for territorial exclusivity and restricted retail and wholesale customers. We do not consider this additional subtlety which was not advanced in the trial court. The burden of proof in antitrust cases remains with the plaintiff, deriving such help as may be available in the circumstances from particularized rules articulated by law — such as the per se doctrine. Cf. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 163, 179 (1931).

6 We have no occasion here to consider whether a patentee has any greater rights in this respect. Compare United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U. S. 476 (1926), with United States v. New Wrinkle, Inc., 342 U. S. 371 (1952); United States v. Line Material Co., 333 U. S. 287 (1948); and United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265 (1942).

7 We do not regard Schwinn’s claim of product excellence as establishing the contrary.