Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

505 F.Supp. 1190 (E.D Pa. 1980)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Matsushita (Ds) are 21 corporations that manufacture or sell 'consumer electronic products (CEP).' The 21 firms include both Japanese manufacturers of CEPs and American firms, controlled by Japanese parents that sell the Japanese-manufactured products. Zenith Radio Corporation (P) is an American firm that manufactures and sells television sets. National Union Electric Corporation (P) is the corporate successor to Emerson Radio Company, an American firm that manufactured and sold television sets until 1970 when it withdrew from the market after sustaining substantial losses. Ps began this lawsuit in 1974, claiming that Ds had illegally conspired to drive American firms from the American CEP market. The conspiracy was a '`scheme to raise, fix and maintain artificially high prices for television receivers sold in Japan and, at the same time, to fix and maintain low prices for television receivers exported to and sold in the United States. These 'low prices' were allegedly at levels that produced substantial losses for Ds. The conspiracy began as early as 1953, and according to Ps was in full operation by sometime in the late 1960s. Ps claimed that various portions of this scheme violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, § 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, § 73 of the Wilson Tariff Act, and the Antidumping Act of 1916. After several years of discovery, Ds filed motions for summary judgment on all claims against them. The District Court found the bulk of the evidence on which Ps relied inadmissible. In an opinion spanning 217 pages, the court found that the admissible evidence did not raise a genuine issue of material fact as to the existence of the alleged conspiracy. Ps' claims rested on the inferences that could be drawn from petitioners' parallel conduct in the Japanese and American markets, and from the effects of that conduct on petitioners' American competitors. The court found that any inference of conspiracy was unreasonable, because (i) some portions of the evidence suggested that petitioners conspired in ways that did not injure respondents, and (ii) the evidence that bore directly on the alleged price-cutting conspiracy did not rebut the more plausible inference that Ds were cutting prices to compete in the American market and not to monopolize it. Summary judgment, therefore, was granted to Ds.