Mr. Furniture Warehouse, Inc., was a company engaged in the wholesale and retail furniture business. Like many other companies in its line of business, Mr. Furniture frequently obtained its furniture products from manufacturers by making purchases on credit. Credit usually was not provided by the manufacturers themselves but rather by institutions engaged in 'commercial factoring! Such institutions typically purchase manufacturers! Accounts receivable at a discount and assume direct responsibility for collecting the outstanding debts. Moreover, factored, credit institutions often purchase debt on a nonrecourse basis, meaning that they assume the entire risk of a debtors failure to repay. The institutions rely on credit ratings and similar criteria in deciding which purchasers should be extended credit. Barclays American/Commercial, Inc., was almost certainly the dominant factored credit institution in the market in which Mr. Furniture operated. Barclays refused to extend credit for Mr. Furniture's inventory purchases from furniture manufacturers. Mr. Furniture's president, Howard Cassett, asserted that the refusal was based on two elements: (1) Barclays's attempt to monopolize the factored-credit market and (2) the personal animosity that Barclays's manager, Jim Stenhouse, harbored toward Cassett. Mr. Furniture sued Barclays, alleging, among other things, violations of the Sherman Act. The trial court ruled that Mr. Furniture lacked standing to bring the antitrust charge; the court held that any alleged monopolization would directly injure other commercial factoring institutions that competed with Barclays, not Mr. Furniture
(a) The court's ruling, affirmed on appeal, that Mr. Furniture lad/ad standing was based on the contention that any antitrust vidatkris committed by Barclays would figure its competitors-other factored-accept institutions-not Mr. Furniture. Should Furniture have been allowed to complain simply because as a 'consumer* of factored-cricket services. it was harmed by the alleged monopoly over credit extension acquired by Barclays? After all, the antitrust laws are succored to help consumers, not competitors. Does the court's nine mean that only Barclays's rivals could bring the suit?
(b) The court expilcity held that the alleged personal animosity of the Barclays executive toward Mr. Furniture's president was irrelevant. There is something to be said for preventing the antitrust laws, which involve the mechanisms of the judicial process, from being used in a petty way to settle personal feuds. But if monopoly power-assuming Barclays had such power-is used for personal motives, would it be reasonable to anew standing on that basis? Is such abuse any less troubling just because it is done for personal rather than economic reasons?