United States v. Third Nat. Bank in Nashville

In this case the United States appeals from a District Court decision1 upholding the merger of Third National Bank in Nashville and Nashville Bank and Trust Company against challenge under § 7 of the Clayton Act. The court below concluded that the merger, which joined the second largest and the fourth largest banks in Davidson County, Tennessee, into a bank which immediately after the merger was the county’s largest bank but since has become the second largest, would not tend substantially to lessen competition and also that any anticom-petitive effect would be outweighed by the “convenience…