Celler-Kefauver Act
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…er, we mean over a century ago...wise, powerful men were concerned that big, greedy companies were making too much profit, and wanted to prevent them from taking advantage of the little guy. Too much shady stuff was going on, so they enacted some...acts. (We know we’re really simplifying things here, but if you read the history on federal regulation, compliance rules, and antitrust laws, it’s a snoozefest).
In 1950, the Celler-Kefauver Act was passed to further prevent unlawful mergers and acquisitions, and to minimize monopolies, thereby improving healthy competition among companies.
The result: Amazon and Wholefoods.
Wait. What?
Ok, ok, we’ll back up. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted to increase economic competitiveness, as well as to eliminate trusts, which at the time were a tool used by a few to unlawfully manipulate and dominate the marketplace. Some savvy folks found big loopholes and continued their unscrupulous business practices, so in 1914, Congress decided to make some improvements by implementing the Clayton Antitrust Act.
This act strengthened the existing laws established by the Sherman Antitrust Act, and went a step further by creating provisions that allowed the little guy to sue for damages, and prevented the big guys from attempting horizontal mergers. But that didn’t stop corporate price discrimination or predatory lending, or address the companies attempting vertical or conglomerate mergers. Because of this flaw, many companies were able create monopolies, thus significantly reducing competition in our country, thus pushing the little guy...out of the picture.
Enter the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950: No more monopolies. No more unlawful mergers. No more loopholes. No more conglomerates attempting to join forces to snuff out the little guy (except for maybe the attempt by Broadcom and Qualcomm, or Comcast and Time Warner, or Kraft and Unilever, or Pfizer and Allergan, or Honeywell and United Technologies, or CVS and...)