Texaco Inc. v. Fouad N. Dagher, et al. (547 U.S. 1)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 28, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 547 U.S. 1 · 126 S. Ct. 1276
- Decided
- February 28, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Thomas
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. From 1998 until 2002, petitioners Texaco Inc. and Shell Oil Co. collaborated in a joint venture, Equilon Enterprises, to refine and sell gasoline in the western United States under the original Texaco and Shell Oil brand names. Respondents, a class of Texaco and Shell Oil service station owners, allege that petitioners engaged in unlawful price fixing when Equilon set a single price for both Texaco and Shell Oil brand gasoline. We granted certiorari to determine whether it is per se illegal under § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, for a lawful, economically integrated joint venture to set the prices at which the joint venture sells its products. We conclude that it is not, and accordingly we reverse the contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals. I Historically, Texaco and Shell Oil have competed with one another in the national and international oil and gasoline markets. Their business activities include refining crude oil into gasoline, as well as marketing gasoline to downstream purchasers, such as the service stations represented in respondents’ class action. In 1998, Texaco and Shell Oil formed- a joint venture, Equilon, to consolidate their operations in the western United States, thereby ending competition between the two companies in the domestic refining and marketing of gasoline. Under the joint venture…
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