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Pillsbury Co. v. Federal Trade Commission | 354 F.2d 952 (1966)
Thanks to procedural due process, private litigants in the United States have the right to a fair trial and, equally important, the right to the appearance of impartiality. The Fifth Circuit considered whether congressional interference with agency decision-making violated procedural due process and required reversal of the agency’s order in Pillsbury Company versus Federal Trade Commission.
In nineteen fifty-one and nineteen fifty-two, the Pillsbury Company acquired two leading competitors in the baking-products business. The acquisition became the focus of Federal Trade Commission, or F T C, proceedings under amended Section Seven of the Clayton Act. The complaint against Pillsbury alleged that the acquisition violated Section Seven because it tended to substantially reduce competition or create a monopoly. On an interlocutory appeal from a dismissal for lack of evidence, the F T C rejected the government’s argument that any acquisition that substantially increases a company’s market share is illegal per se. Instead, Section Seven required an examination of all relevant factors to determine the likely economic consequences of the acquisition in question. After finding that the government had made a prima facie showing under that test, the F T C remanded the case to the hearing officer so that Pillsbury could present its evidence.
Both parties were still presenting their evidence to the hearing officer when two congressional subcommittees started holding hearings on antitrust matters. F T C chairman Edward Howrey testified at the hearings, as did the F T C’s general counsel, who later became the chairman and wrote the final decision in the Pillsbury case. The Pillsbury case or the Pillsbury name was mentioned more than one hundred times during the hearings. While questioning Chairman Howrey, members of Congress forcefully voiced their own opinions that the F T C had reached the wrong decision and deviated from congressional intent in rejecting the per se doctrine. The questions were so probing as to how and why this decision was reached that Chairman Howrey announced that he would have to disqualify himself from further participation in the pending Pillsbury case.
In nineteen sixty, the F T C made its final decision in the Pillsbury case. The F T C found that Pillsbury’s acquisition of its two competitors violated Section Seven and ordered Pillsbury to sell the two competitors. Pillsbury appealed directly to the Fifth Circuit, arguing that its procedural due-process rights were violated.
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