Competition record
Alcoa
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Alcoa is the aluminum producer Judge Learned Hand held liable on 12 March 1945 for monopolizing virgin aluminum ingot. The later remedy left the company intact, and Reynolds and Kaiser became competitors.
Overview
Alcoa smelts aluminum. Virgin ingot is the primary metal other mills roll, cast, and machine into sheet, parts, and wire. For decades Alcoa was the company that made nearly all of that new metal in the United States.
On 12 March 1945 the Second Circuit, through Judge Learned Hand, held Alcoa liable for monopolizing the virgin ingot market. The opinion treated the maintenance of that monopoly as a Sherman Act violation. The government had asked a court to say the monopoly was unlawful, and Hand's court said it was.
The remedy that followed did not break Alcoa into pieces. Aluminum plants built for the war effort gave Reynolds and Kaiser a way into the business, and those firms became competitors while Alcoa continued as one company. Alcoa still produces aluminum. The 1945 ruling stands as a liability finding for monopolizing virgin ingot.
Competition footprint
Aircraft, packaging, and construction all buy aluminum that starts as ingot or as metal made from it.
Hand's ruling is about keeping a monopoly of virgin ingot, which is the input independent fabricators needed.
The structural result was new competitors from wartime plants, not a court-ordered split of Alcoa.
Consumer & business angle
Fabricators and downstream manufacturers buy the metal whose supply Alcoa had monopolized.
Reynolds and Kaiser are the rivals the remedy era actually produced.
What to watch
- How monopolization opinions still cite Hand when a firm holds a primary input.
- Alcoa's place in modern aluminum supply, which is a commercial question separate from the 1945 decree.
Markets
aluminum · virgin aluminum ingot · aluminum fabrication inputs
Also known as: aluminum company of america, alcoa