American Tobacco Case
AMERICAN TOBACCO CASE
AMERICAN TOBACCO CASE (United States v. American Tobacco Company, 221 U.S. 106, 1911). Buck Duke's American Tobacco Company was created in 1890 through the consolidation of five separate entities. By 1910, with the aid of a labyrinthine corporate holding structure, American Tobacco controlled an 86 percent share of the American cigarette market, 76 percent of pipe tobacco, and 84 percent of chewing tobacco. In 1907, the Roosevelt Administration initiated antitrust proceedings. Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, following the same reasoning used in another antitrust case—the Standard Oil case—found (with an 8-1 margin) that American Tobacco had attempted to restrain commerce and monopolize the tobacco business in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bickel, Alexander M. History of the Supreme Court of the United States: The Judiciary and Responsible Government, 1910–21. New York: Macmillan, 1984.
R. Volney Riser
See also Sherman Antitrust Act ; Standard Oil Company ; Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States .