The rule of reason is a doctrine developed by the United States Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The rule, stated and applied in the case of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1 (1911), is that only combinations and contracts unreasonably restraining trade are subject to actions under the anti-trust laws and that size and possession of monopoly power was not illegal. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, was the first United States federal government action to limit the monopolies which trust companies held over the economy. ... Look up rule on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Categories: Stub | Software engineering | Data management ... Holding The Standard Oil Compant was deemed an illegal trust under the Sherman Act, and was split into many smaller companies. ... Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1911 was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... A contract is any legally-enforceable promise or set of promises made between parties. ... A fruit stand at a market. ... Antitrust is also the name for a movie, see Antitrust (movie) Antitrust or competition laws legislate against trade practices that undermine competitiveness or are considered to be unfair. ... In economics, a monopoly (from the Greek monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a kind of product or service. ... Illegal, or unlawful, is either prohibitted or not authorized by law. ...

Prior to the Standard Oil case, the Court had interpreted the language of the Sherman Act to hold that all contracts restraining trade were prohibited, regardless of whether the restraint actually produced no ill effects.

The rule was narrowed in later cases that held that certain kinds of restraints, such as price fixing agreements, group boycotts, and geographical market divisions, were illegal per se. The examples and perspective in this article do not represent a worldwide view. ... A boycott is a refusal to buy, sell, or otherwise trade with an individual or business who is generally believed by the participants in the boycott to be doing something morally wrong. ... The term Market Sector is used in economics and finance to describe a set of businesses that are buying and selling such similar goods and services that they are in direct competition with each other. ... The term, illegal per se, means that the act is inherently illegal. ...

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has adopted the concept in its own jurisprudence concerning the free movement of goods within the European Common Market. The rule has arisen in the context of Article 28 (ex 30) of the Treaty of Rome, which prohibits quantitative restrictions on imports (or measures having equivalent effect). In Cassis de Dijon the ECJ drew a distinction between measures in breach of Article 28 which were indistinctly applicable as opposed to distinctly applicable. Indistinctly applicable measures are ones that, prima facie, do not favour domestic producers over importers, and whose effects are equal on both. The ECJ argued that indistinctly applicable measures that favoured domestic traders over importers were not necessarily in breach of Article 28. They could be justified if they satisfied 'mandatory' requirements - namely that the measure is necssary for protecting the public or the consumer. The rule of reason is essentially the proposition that a proportionality exercise must be performed by the Court to determine whether the effects of Member State legislation on the free movement of goods is justified in light of the legislation's stated goals. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is formally known as the Court of Justice of the European Communities, i. ... Jurisprudence is the scientific study of law through a philosophical lens. ... The European Community (EC), most important of three European Communities, was originally founded on March 25, 1957 by the signing of the Treaty of Rome under the name of European Economic Community. ... The Treaty of Rome signing ceremony Signatures in the Treaty The Treaty of Rome refers to the treaty which established the European Economic Community (EEC) and was signed by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg on March 25, 1957. ... Legislation refers to the process of enacting statutory laws, or to the set of statutory laws in a state. ...

This proportionality exercise has itself been applied by the ECJ further than the boundaries of Article 28 would initially allow. See also:

• United States Government
• U.S. history