Robert Bork Dismantled AntiTrust Law. Corp Concentration, Power Out of Control, Monopolization: R. Reich

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'The Borking of America,' March, 2024.
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(Wiki, Ed). Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – Dec. 19, 2012) was an American legal scholar who served as solicitor general of the US 1973- 1977. A professor by training, he was acting US Attorney General and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination after a contentious and highly publicized confirmation hearing..

Bork served as a prof. at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the original understanding of the US Constitution, and an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers and that antitrust law should focus on consumer welfare rather than on ensuring competition. Bork wrote several notable books, including a scholarly work titled The Antitrust Paradox and a work of cultural criticism titled Slouching Towards Gomorrah...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork
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Antitrust Laws, Federal Trade Commission, FTC

Congress passed the first antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890 as a "comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade." In 1914, Congress passed 2 additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act, which created the FTC, and the Clayton Act. With some revisions, these are the 3 core federal antitrust laws still in effect today.

The antitrust laws proscribe unlawful mergers and business practices in general terms, leaving courts to decide which ones are illegal based on the facts of each case. Courts have applied the antitrust laws to changing markets, from a time of horse and buggies to the present digital age.

Yet for over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, & keep quality up. Here is an overview of the 3 core federal antitrust laws...
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws

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1. K&R!

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2. TRUST (Business), Wiki:

(Wiki).. Business and law
Trust (law), a legal relationship in which one person holds property for another's benefit
Trust (business), the combination of several businesses under the same management to prevent competition - Investment trust, a form of investment fund. A trust or corporate trust is a large grouping of business interests with significant market power, which may be embodied as a corporation or as a group of corporations that cooperate with one another in various ways.
These ways can include constituting a trade association, owning stock in one another, constituting a corporate group (sometimes specifically a conglomerate), or combinations thereof. The term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies in the US during the 2nd Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and early 20th century. The use of corporate trusts during this period is the historical reason for the name "antitrust law".
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(Wiki) Trust (business) This article is about the grouping of business interests. It is not to be confused with trust law. The Rockefeller-Morgan Family Tree (1904), which depicts how the largest trusts at the turn of the 20th century were in turn connected to each other. A trust or corporate trust is a large grouping of business interests with significant market power, which may be embodied as a corporation or as a group of corporations that cooperate with one another in various ways. These ways can include constituting a trade association, owning stock in one another, constituting a corporate group (sometimes specifically a conglomerate), or combinations thereof.

The term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies in the US during the 2nd Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and early 20th century. The use of corporate trusts during this period is the historical reason for the name "antitrust law". In the broader sense of the term, relating to trust law, a trust is a legal arrangement based on principles developed and recognised over centuries in English law, specifically in equity, by which one party conveys legal possession and title of certain property to a second party, called a trustee. The trustee holds the property, while any benefit from the property accrues to another person, the beneficiary. Trusts are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children and other family members, for example.

In business, such trusts, with corporate entities as the trustees, have sometimes been used to combine several large businesses in order to exert complete control over a market, which is how the narrower sense of the term grew out of the broader sense. In the US, the use of corporate trusts died out in the early 20th century as U.S. states passed laws making it easier to create new corporations. History, The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) dates use of the word trust in a business organization sense from 1825. The business or "corporate" trust came into use in the 19th-century US, during the Gilded Age, as a legal device to consolidate industrial activity across state lines.
In 1882 John D. Rockefeller and other owners of Standard Oil faced several obstacles to managing and profiting from their large oil refining business. The existing approach of owning and dealing with several companies in each state was unwieldy, often resulting in turf battles and non-uniform practices. Furthermore, the PA legislature proposed to tax out-of-state corporations on their entire business activity. Concerned that other states could follow, Standard Oil had its attorney Samuel C. T. Dodd adapt the common law instrument of a trust to avoid cross-state taxation and to impose a single management hierarchy.

The Standard Oil Trust formed pursuant to a trust agreement in which the individual shareholders of many separate corporations agreed to convey their shares to the trust; it ended up entirely owning 14 corporations and also exercised majority control over 26 others. Nine individuals held trust certificates and acted as the trust's board of trustees. One of those trustees, Rockefeller himself, held 41% of the trust certificates; the next most powerful trustee held about 13%. This trust became a model for other industries...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(business)