Caso UNITED STATES VS. MATSUSHITA CORPORATION JAPAN

Este caso se instaura a causa de una denuncia de los comerciantes americanos que decían que la Matsushita había vendido sus productos durante 20 años son Predatory prices, estos preciso, decían los comerciantes, lea habían ocasionado perjuicio por eso no podían desarrollarse, conocido el caso, La Corte dijo que el argumento no tenia sustento porque no tenia sentido que se reduzca un precio sin buscar recuperar ese valor, en forma posterior y recuperar el valor de 20 años de subsidio era irracional. Con este caso la corte sentó el principio de que la recuperación era un elemento esencial, también sentó el principio de que un comerciante no podía pretender cubrir su ineficacia con el argumento de los precios devastadores y que al final el tema iba por una mejora en la estructura del costo marginal.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

MATSUSHITA ELEC. INDUSTRIAL CO. v. ZENITH RADIO, 475 U.S. 574 (1986)

475 U.S. 574

MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD, ET AL. v. ZENITH RADIO CORP. ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 83-2004. Argued November 12, 1985 -- Decided March 26, 1986

Petitioners are 21 Japanese corporations or Japanese-controlled American corporations that manufacture and/or sell "consumer electronic products" (CEPs) (primarily television sets). Respondents are American corporations that manufacture and sell television sets. In 1974, respondents brought an action in Federal District Court, alleging that petitioners, over a 20-year period, had illegally conspired to drive American firms from the American CEP market by engaging in a scheme to fix and maintain artificially high prices for television sets sold by petitioners in Japan and, at the same time, to fix and maintain low prices for the sets exported to and sold in the United States. Respondents claim that various portions of this scheme violated, inter alia, §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, § 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, and § 73 of the Wilson Tariff Act. After several years of discovery, petitioners moved for summary judgment on all claims. The District Court then directed the parties to file statements listing all the documentary evidence that would be offered if the case went to trial. After the statements were filed, the court found the bulk of the evidence on which respondents relied was inadmissible, that the admissible evidence did not raise a genuine issue of material fact as to the existence of the alleged conspiracy, and that any inference of conspiracy was unreasonable. Summary judgment therefore was granted in petitioners' favor. The Court of Appeals reversed. After determining that much of the evidence excluded by the District Court was admissible, the Court of Appeals held that the District Court erred in granting a summary judgment and that there was both direct and circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy. Based on inferences drawn from the evidence, the Court of Appeals concluded that a reasonable factfinder could find a conspiracy to depress prices in the American market in order to drive out American competitors, which conspiracy was funded by excess profits obtained in the Japanese market.

Held:

The Court of Appeals did not apply proper standards in evaluating the District Court's decision to grant petitioners' motion for summary judgment. Pp. 582-598.

(a) The "direct evidence" on which the Court of Appeals relied - petitioners' alleged supracompetitive pricing in Japan, the "five company rule" by which each Japanese producer was permitted to sell only to five American distributors, and the "check prices" (minimum prices fixed by agreement with the Japanese Government for CEPs exported to the United States) insofar as they established minimum prices in the United States - cannot by itself give respondents a cognizable claim against petitioners for antitrust damages. Pp. 582-583.

(b) To survive petitioners' motion for a summary judgment, respondents must establish that there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether petitioners entered into an illegal conspiracy that caused respondents to suffer a cognizable injury. If the factual context renders respondents' claims implausible, i. e., claims that make no economic sense, respondents must offer more persuasive evidence to support their claims than would otherwise be necessary. To survive a motion for a summary judgment, a plaintiff seeking damages for a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act must present evidence "that tends to exclude the possibility" that the alleged conspirators acted independently. Thus, respondents here must show that the inference of a conspiracy is reasonable in light of the competing inferences of independent action or collusive action that could not have harmed respondents. Pp. 585-588.

(c) Predatory pricing conspiracies are by nature speculative. They require the conspirators to sustain substantial losses in order to recover uncertain gains. The alleged conspiracy is therefore implausible. Moreover, the record discloses that the alleged conspiracy has not succeeded in over two decades of operation. This is strong evidence that the conspiracy does not in fact exist. The possibility that petitioners have obtained supracompetitive profits in the Japanese market does not alter this assessment. Pp. 588-593.

(d) Mistaken inferences in cases such as this one are especially costly, because they chill the very conduct that the antitrust laws are designed to protect. There is little reason to be concerned that by granting summary judgment in cases where the evidence of conspiracy is speculative or ambiguous, courts will encourage conspiracies. Pp. 593-595.

(e) The Court of Appeals erred in two respects: the "direct evidence" on which it relied had little, if any, relevance to the alleged predatory pricing conspiracy, and the court failed to consider the absence of a plausible motive to engage in predatory pricing. In the absence of any rational motive to conspire, neither petitioners' pricing practices, their conduct in the Japanese market, nor their agreements respecting prices and distributions in the American market sufficed to create a "genuine issue for trial" under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(e). On remand, the Court of Appeals may consider whether there is other, unambiguous evidence of the alleged conspiracy. Pp. 595-598.

723 F.2d 238, reversed and remanded.

POWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and MARSHALL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 598.