United States v. First National Bank of Maryland

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, District Judge.

If one could say, with apologies to Miss Gertrude Stein, that a bank is a bank is a bank, or even that a branch is a branch is a branch, perhaps this civil antitrust case involving a proposed bank merger could be said .to pose issues basically legal rather than factual. Congress and the Supreme Court, it is true, have established broad legal guidelines for the separation of permitted and proscribed bank mergers. But in most antitrust eases, it is the facts which govern .the determination of whether or not there is a reasonable probability that the merger will…