The act to create a Federal Trade Commission, approved September 26, 1914, provides that such commission shall be composed of five commissioners and shall have an official seal, which shall be judiciously noticed.
The commission is empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships or corporations, except banks, and common carriers subject to the acts to regulate commerce, from using unfair or unjustly discriminating methods of competition in commerce.
Proceedings Against Persons Charged With Unfair Methods.Section 5 of the act declares that unfair methods of competition are unlawful and provides that: Whenever the commission shall have reason to believe that any such person, partnership or corporation has been or is using any unfair method of competition in commerce, and if it shall appear to the commission that a proceeding by it in respect thereof would be to the interest of the public, it shall issue .and serve upon such person, partnership or corporation a complaint stating its charges in that respect, and containing a notice of a hearing upon a day and at a place therein fixed at least thirty days after the service of said complaint. The person, partner-ship, or corporation so complained of shall have the right to appear at the place and time so fixed and show cause why an order should not be entered by the commission requiring such person, partnership or corporation to cease and desist from the violation of the law so charged in said complaint. Any person, partnership or corporation may make application, and upon good cause shown may be allowed by the commission to intervene and appear in said proceeding by counsel or in person. The testimony in such proceeding shall be reduced to writing and filed in the office of the commission. If upon such hearing the commission shall be of opinion that the method of competition in question is prohibited by this act, it shall make a report in writing in which it shall state its findings as to the facts, and shall issue and cause to be served on such person, partnership or corporation an order requiring such per-son, partnership or corporation to cease and desist from using such method of competition. Until a transcript of the record in such hearing shall have been filed in a circuit court of appeals of the United States, as hereinafter provided, the commission may at any time, upon such notice and in such manner as it shall deem proper, modify or set aside, in whole or in part, any report or any order made or issued by it under this section.
The jurisdiction of the circuit court of appeals of the United States to enforce, set aside, or modify orders of the commission shall be exclusive.
Corporation Ownership of Stock in Competing Concerns Restricted.Section 7 of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, of October 15, 1914, provides:
That no corporation engaged in commerce shall acquire directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital of another corporation engaged also in commerce, where the effect of such acquisition may be to substantially lessen competition between the corporation whose stock is so acquired and the corporation making the acquisition, or to restrain such commerce in any section or community, or tend to create a monopoly of any line of commerce.
No corporation shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital of two or more corporations en-gaged in commerce where the effect of such acquisition, or the use of such stock by the voting or granting of proxies or otherwise, may be to substantially lessen competition between such corporations, or any of them, whose stock or other share capital is so acquired, or to restrain such commerce in any section or community, or tend to create a monopoly of any line of commerce.
This section shall not apply to corporations purchasing such stock solely for investment and not using the same by voting or otherwise to bring about, or in attempting to bring about, the substantial lessening of competition. Nor shall anything contained in this section prevent a corporation engaged in commerce from causing the formation of subsidiary corporations for the actual carrying on of their immediate lawful business, or the natural and legitimate branches or extensions thereof, or from owning and holding all or a part of the stock of such subsidiary corporations, when the effect of such formation is not to substantially lessen competition.
Nor shall anything herein contained be construed to prohibit any common carrier subject to the laws to regulate commerce from aiding in the construction of branches or short lines so located as to become feeders to the main line of the company, or from acquiring all or any part of their stock, nor acquiring all or any part of the stock of a branch or short line constructed between an independent company or other common carrier where there is no substantial competition.