Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp.

Copperweld v. Independence Tube
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 5, 1983 Decided June 19, 1984
Full case name	Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp.
Citations	467 U.S. 752 (more) 104 S. Ct. 2731; 81 L. Ed. 2d 628
Case history
Prior	Independence Tube Corp. v. Copperweld Corp., 691 F.2d 310 (7th Cir. 1982); cert. granted, 462 U.S. 1131 (1983).
Subsequent	Remanded, 753 F.2d 1076 (7th Cir. 1984).
Holding
A parent company and its wholly owned subsidiary are incapable of conspiracy as defined by the Sherman Act.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Case opinions
Majority	Burger, joined by Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Brennan, Marshall
White took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
Sherman Antitrust Act
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 340 U.S. 211 (1951)

Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752 (1984), is a major US antitrust law case decided by the Supreme Court concerning the Pittsburgh firm Copperweld Corporation and the Chicago firm Independence Tube.^[1] It held that a parent company is incapable of conspiring with its wholly owned subsidiary for purposes of Section 1 of the Sherman Act because they cannot be considered separate economic entities.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act states that "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." However, for a condition of conspiracy to exist, there must be at least two parties involved. Copperweld held that separate incorporation was not enough to render a parent and its subsidiary capable of conspiring, since forcibly the economic interests of a wholly owned subsidiary must be those of its parent. It does not apply to partially owned subsidiaries.^[2]