Recent Developments in Trade Association Law

TRADE associations, since Supreme Court decisions in June, 1925, in Cement and Maple Flooring cases, have been free to exchange information regarding past prices, stocks on hand, production, shipments, costs, job contracts, freights and credits, so long as associations and their members keep themselves clear from any agreements, understandings or concerted action on these subjects. Uniformity of prices, as Supreme Court recognized in these decisions, may be consequence of exchange of information, even though exchange takes place without any agreements, understandings or concerted action on part of trade associations or their members. So long as these consequences are, to quote Supreme Court, such as would naturally ensue from exercise of individual judgment of manufacturers in determining, on basis of available information, whether to extend credit or to require cash or security from any given customer, and so long as resulting uniformity of prices follows simply from the necessary leveling effect upon prices of knowledge disseminated among sellers as to some of important factors which enter into price, there is no violation of anti-trust laws

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