Opinion of the Court. 334 U.S. show that the less-than-carload purchasers might have been handicapped in competing with the more favored carload purchasers by the differential in price established by respondent, the Commission was justified in finding that competition might have thereby been substantially lessened or have been injured within the meaning of the Act. Apprehension is expressed in this Court that enforcement of the Commission's order against respondent's continued violations of the Robinson-Patman Act might lead respondent to raise table salt prices to its carload purchasers. Such a conceivable, though, we think, highly improbable, contingency, could afford us no reason for upsetting the Commission's findings and declining to direct compliance with a statute passed by Congress. The Commission here went much further in receiving evidence than the statute requires. It heard testimony from many witnesses in various parts of the country to show that they had suffered actual financial losses on account of respondent's discriminatory prices. Experts were offered to prove the tendency of injury from such prices. The evidence covers about two thousand pages, largely devoted to this single issue-injury to competition. It would greatly handicap effective enforcement of the Act to require testimony to show that which we believe to be self-evident, namely, that there is a "reasonable possibility" that competition may be adversely affected by a practice under which manufacturers and producers sell their goods to some customers substantially cheaper than they sell like goods to the competitors of these customers. This showing in itself is sufficient to justify our conclusion discrimination. Only through such injuries, in fact, can the larger general injury result, and to catch the weed in the seed will keep it from coming to flower." S. Rep. No. 1502, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 4. See also H. R. Rep. No. 2287, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 8; 80 Cong. Rec. 377 Opinion of the Court. that the Commission's findings of injury to competition were adequately supported by evidence. Fifth. The Circuit Court of Appeals held, and respondent here contends, that the order was too sweeping, that it required the respondent to "conduct its business generally at its peril," and that the Commission had exceeded its jurisdiction in entering such an order.19 Reliance for this contention chiefly rests on Labor Board v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U. S. 426. That case held that the Labor Board could not broadly enjoin violations of all the provisions of the statute merely because a single violation of one of the Act's many provisions had been found. Id. at 435-436. But it also pointed out that the Labor Board, "Having found the acts which constitute the unfair labor practice . . . is free to restrain the practice and other like or related unlawful acts." It there pointed out that this Court had applied a similar rule to a Federal Trade Commission order in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Beech-Nut Co., 257 U. S. 441, 455. In the latter case the 19 The prohibiting paragraphs of the order were: "(a) By selling such products to some wholesalers thereof at prices different from the prices charged other wholesalers who in fact compete in the sale and distribution of such products; provided, however, that this shall not prevent price differences of less than five cents per case which do not tend to lessen, injure, or destroy competition among such wholesalers. "(b) By selling such products to some retailers thereof at prices different from the prices charged other retailers who in fact compete in the sale and distribution of such products; provided, however, that this shall not prevent price differences of less than five cents per case which do not tend to lessen, injure, or destroy competition among such retailers. "(c) By selling such products to any retailer at prices lower than prices charged wholesalers whose customers compete with such retailer. "For the purposes of comparison, the term 'price' as used in this order takes into account discounts, rebates, allowances, and other terms and conditions of sale." Opinion of the Court. 334 U.S. Court not only approved restraint of the unlawful pricefixing practices found, but "any other equivalent cooperative means of accomplishing the maintenance of prices fixed by the company." See also May Dep't Stores Co. v. Labor Board, 326 U. S. 376, 392-393. We think the Commission's order here, save for the provisos in (a) and (b) later considered, is specifically aimed at the pricing practices found unlawful, and therefore does not run counter to the holding in the Express Publishing Co. case. Certainly the order in its relation to the circumstances of this case is only designed "to prevent violations, the threat of which in the future is indicated because of their similarity or relation to those unlawful acts which the Board [Commission] has found to have been committed by the... [respondent] in the past." Labor Board v. Express Publishing Co., supra, 436-437. The specific restraints of paragraphs (a) and (b) of the order are identical, except that one applies to prices respondent charges wholesalers and the other to prices charged retailers. It is seen that the first part of these paragraphs, preceding the provisos, would absolutely bar respondent from selling its table salt, regardless of quantities, to some wholesalers and retailers at prices different from that which it charged competing wholesalers and retailers for the same grade of salt. The Commission had found that respondent had been continuously engaged in such discriminations through the use of discounts, rebates and allowances. It had further found that respondent had failed to show justification for these differences by reason of a corresponding difference in its costs. Thus the restraints imposed by the Commission upon respondent are concerned with the precise unlawful practices in which it was found to have engaged for a number of years. True, the Commission did not merely prohibit future discounts, rebates, and allowances in the exact mathematical percentages previously utilized by respondent. Had the 37 Opinion of the Court. order done no more than that, respondent could have continued substantially the same unlawful practices despite the order by simply altering the discount percentages and the quantities of salt to which the percentages applied. Paragraphs (a) and (b) up to the language of the provisos are approved. The provisos in (a) and (b) present a more difficult problem. They read: "provided, however, that this shall not prevent price differences of less than five cents per case which do not tend to lessen, injure, or destroy competition among such wholesalers [retailers]." The first clause of the provisos, but for the second qualifying clause, would unequivocally permit respondent to maintain price differentials of less than five cents as between competing wholesalers and as between competing retailers.20 This clause would appear to benefit respondent, and no challenge to it, standing alone, is here raised. But respondent seriously objects to the second clause of the proviso which qualifies the permissive less-than-five-cent differentials provided in the first clause. That qualification permits such differentials only if they do "not tend to lessen, injure, or destroy competition." Respondent points out that where a differential tends in no way to injure competition, the Act permits it. "The Commission," so respondent urges, "must either find and rule that a given. differential injures competition, and then prohibit it, or it must leave that differential entirely alone." Whether, and under what circumstances, if any, the Commission 20 The only finding of the Commission specifically relating to five-cent differentials was: "Salt is a staple commodity with a medium turnover and is generally sold by wholesalers to their retail customers on a lower margin of profit than that received on other commodities. Consequently, the price at which the wholesaler offers his table salt is usually controlling, and a difference of five cents per case may result in the loss of a sale to a customer, not only of the salt involved but of other commodities as well, the order for which might be placed with the salt purchase." Opinion of the Court. 334 U.S. might prohibit differentials which do not of themselves tend to injure competition, we need not decide, for the Commission has not in either (a) or (b) taken action which forbids such noninjurious differentials. But other objections raised to the qualifying clauses require consideration. One of the reasons for entrusting enforcement of this Act primarily to the Commission, a body of experts, was to authorize it to hear evidence as to given differential practices and to make findings concerning possible injury to competition. Such findings are to form the basis for cease and desist orders definitely restraining the particular discriminatory practices which may tend to injure competition without justification. The effective administration of the Act, insofar as the Act entrusts administration to the Commission, would be greatly impaired if, without compelling reasons not here present, the Commission's cease and desist orders did no more than shift to the courts in subsequent contempt proceedings for their violation the very fact questions of injury to competition, etc., which the Act requires the Commission to determine as the basis for its order. The enforcement responsibility of the courts, once a Commission order has become final either by lapse of time or by court approval, 15 U. S. C. §§ 21, 45, is to adjudicate questions concerning the order's violation, not questions of fact which support that valid order. Whether on this record the Commission was compelled to exempt certain differentials of less than five cents we do not decide. But once the Commission exempted the differentials in question from its order, we are constrained to hold that as to those differentials it could not then shift to the courts a responsibility in enforcement proceedings of trying issues of possible injury to competition, issues which Congress has primarily entrusted to the Commission. |