That consensus view also has to reject the Socony Court’s claim that it distinguished between what it approved in Appalachian Coals and what is widely thought of as a virtually identical cartel that it disapproved in Socony.(8) Thus, the scholarly consensus is that Appalachian Coals was a mistake that the Court effectively overturned in Socony (even while saying it was just distinguishing between those cases). In fact, as shown below, Socony didn’t overturn Appalachian Coals because Appalachian Coals wasn’t a price-fixing case, but a rule of reason case about a firm that did not fix prices or intend to fix prices and had no market power (despite its high share of sales).
