## Facts

- The Associated Press (AP) was a nonprofit membership cooperative of more than 1,200 newspapers engaged in gathering and distributing news in interstate and foreign commerce.
- AP bylaws barred AP from providing its news service to nonmembers and barred members from supplying locally gathered “spontaneous news” to nonmembers.
- AP bylaws gave existing members effective power to block a competing newspaper’s application for AP membership.
- AP also had an exclusive dealing arrangement with the Canadian Press.
- The United States sued under §§ 1–2 of the Sherman Act, alleging an unlawful combination restraining trade and an attempt to monopolize the distribution of news.

## Issues

1. Whether AP’s bylaws and exclusive dealing arrangements, on their face and under undisputed facts, constituted unlawful restraints of trade or monopolization under the Sherman Act.
2. Whether summary judgment and injunctive relief were proper under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 in this antitrust case.
3. Whether applying the Sherman Act to invalidate AP’s restrictive rules violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s summary judgment and injunction against AP.
- The Court held AP’s bylaws and the AP–Canadian Press contract, together with admitted facts, established Sherman Act violations without a need for trial.
- The Court ruled that trade in news among states is interstate commerce and that AP’s cooperative structure did not exempt it from antitrust law.
- The Court rejected the argument that the First Amendment immunizes anticompetitive restraints imposed by a combination of publishers.
- The injunction was construed to require that AP not use restrictive membership rules or equivalent devices to deny competitors nondiscriminatory access to AP news.

## Legal Principles

- Agreements among competitors that restrict the distribution of a product and block competitors’ access through exclusionary membership rules can constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade under Sherman Act § 1.
- Liability under the Sherman Act does not require proof of a complete monopoly; exclusionary restraints may be unlawful even without total market domination.
- Cooperative or nonprofit organizational form does not remove concerted anticompetitive conduct from Sherman Act coverage.
- “Trade in news” transmitted among states is interstate commerce subject to federal antitrust regulation.
- Summary judgment is available in antitrust cases, including against publishers, when the governing documents and undisputed facts show no genuine issue of material fact.
- The First Amendment does not bar enforcement of antitrust laws against combinations that restrain competition in news distribution; antitrust enforcement may serve the public interest in broad dissemination from diverse sources.

## Conclusion

The Court held that AP’s exclusionary bylaws and related arrangements unlawfully restrained competition in interstate news distribution and could be enjoined on summary judgment, and it further held that applying the Sherman Act to these practices does not violate freedom of the press.


Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1 (1945)