Sherman Act Presentation

The Sherman Act (or Sherman Anti-Trust Act) is one of the North American anti-trust laws. Despite the monopolies being considered illegal according to the customary law already in the 19th century, from a certain time those laws began to reveal themselves ineffective before the fusions and trusts that meanwhile began to emerge. It’s in this context that in 1890 is approved the Sherman Act, who declared illegal the monopoly of any business branch as well as the combination or conspiracy to restrain the economic activity.

The lack of clarity about which the actions that should be considered as illegal, lead to that in 1914 would be approved a new law: Clayton Antitrust Act.

 

 

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.