Celler-Kefauver Act

PASSED BY THE U.S. CONGRESS in 1950, the Celler-Kefauver Act strengthened previous antitrust legislation by amending sections and adding provisions to the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. It made the Clayton Act's anti-merger provisions more applicable and it outlawed more types of illegal intercorporate holdings, mergers, and acquisitions.

The original antitrust legislation, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, was utilized heavily during Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft administrations. The legislation prohibited any action by private firms that would prevent the regulatory action of the U.S. market system. It encouraged a market system with a significant number of rivals in each industry, ensuring market competition. Empowered by the act, the U.S. attorney general is permitted to bring lawsuits against companies suspected of monopolizing. The act accounted ...