Business Electronics Corp. v. Sharp Electronics Corp.

Sharp Electronics Corporation (Sharp) (defendant) sold calculators through two Houston retailers, Business Electronics Corporation (BEC) (plaintiff) and Gilbert Hartwell (Hartwell) (defendant), giving both a suggested minimum retail price that both frequently undercut. When Hartwell complained that BEC's low prices were hurting his business and threatened to drop Sharp's product line unless Sharp terminated BEC, Sharp complied and ended BEC's dealership; BEC sued Sharp and Hartwell under the Sherman Act, and the jury, instructed that a manufacturer-dealer agreement to terminate a price-cutting dealer is automatically (per se) illegal, found for BEC. The court of appeals reversed, holding per se treatment applies only when the manufacturer controls the surviving dealer's prices, and BEC sought Supreme Court review.