Federal Trade Commission v. Consolidated Foods Corp.

The question presented involves an important construction and application of § 7 of the Clayton Act,1 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 18. Consolidated Foods Corp. — which owns food processing plants and a network of wholesale and retail food stores — acquired Gentry, Inc., in 1951. Gentry manufactures principally dehydrated onion and garlic. The Federal Trade Commission held that the acquisition violated § 7 because it gave respondent the advantage of a mixed threat and lure of reciprocal buying in its competition for business and “the power to foreclose competition from a substantial…