## Facts

- Industrial Investment Development Corporation and affiliated Hong Kong entities sought to enter the market as American importers of Indonesian timber products.
- Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (Japan), Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc., and an Indonesian company (Telaga Mas) were alleged to have conspired to exclude plaintiffs from harvesting timber in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, and exporting logs and lumber to the United States and other countries.
- Plaintiffs alleged the exclusionary scheme was intended to, and did, restrain and monopolize U.S. foreign commerce in violation of Sherman Act §§ 1 and 2.
- Plaintiffs also asserted a nonfederal claim for tortious interference with contractual relations arising from the same alleged conduct.
- After an earlier appeal rejected summary judgment based on the act of state doctrine, the district court on remand again granted summary judgment for defendants, concluding (1) the conduct was outside the extraterritorial scope of U.S. antitrust law, (2) plaintiffs lacked antitrust standing, and (3) the case should be dismissed on forum non conveniens; it also dismissed the state-law claim.
- Plaintiffs appealed the second summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged exclusionary conduct occurring largely abroad, aimed at controlling a foreign source of supply, fell within the Sherman Act’s reach because it affected U.S. foreign commerce.
2. Whether plaintiffs, as an allegedly excluded competitor seeking to import into the United States, sufficiently alleged antitrust injury and thus had standing under the Sherman Act.
3. Whether the action should be dismissed under forum non conveniens or declined under comity, international law, or conflicts principles, and whether the related state-law tort claim should be heard with the federal antitrust claims.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the alleged restraint was not beyond the Sherman Act’s extraterritorial scope because competition between American importers to obtain a foreign source of supply affects U.S. foreign commerce.
- The court held plaintiffs adequately alleged antitrust injury and had standing sufficient to proceed past summary judgment.
- The court held forum non conveniens did not justify dismissal and that comity, international law, and conflicts considerations did not require the court to decline jurisdiction.
- The court directed that the antitrust claims and the nonfederal tort claim be resolved in the same trial.

## Legal Principles

- The Sherman Act may apply to conduct involving foreign sources of supply when the alleged restraint impacts U.S. foreign commerce, including competition among American importers.
- An excluded competitor alleging loss of the opportunity to compete as an importer due to a conspiracy to restrain trade or monopolize can plead antitrust injury sufficient for standing at the summary judgment stage.
- Forum non conveniens is inappropriate where the dispute materially concerns U.S. commerce and includes U.S. parties and a workable domestic forum.
- Federal courts need not decline jurisdiction on comity, international law, or conflicts grounds merely because significant events occurred abroad, absent a sufficient reason to abstain.
- When state-law tort claims arise from the same core facts as federal antitrust claims, they should ordinarily be tried together to promote efficient resolution.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit reinstated the plaintiffs’ federal antitrust and related tort claims, holding that alleged exclusion of an American importer from a foreign timber supply could fall within the Sherman Act because it affected U.S. foreign commerce, that plaintiffs had standing based on alleged competitor exclusion, and that neither forum non conveniens nor international comity principles warranted dismissal.


Industrial Inv. Dev. Corp. v. Mitsui & Co., 671 F.2d 876 (5th Cir. 1982)