As a result of a suit filed in 1974 under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) monopoly was broken up in 1982. Antitrust legislation is primarily regulated by the Antitrust Division of the Dept. of Justice and the FTC. In the 1980s these authorities adopted a looser interpretation of antitrust legislation. By the 1990s, still a time of large corporate mergers, the FTC became more litigious in antitrust actions, and the Justice Dept. aggressively pursued the Microsoft Company (see Gates, Bill). .
See R. Posner, Anti-Trust Law (1976); R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox (1978).
Sherman, John, 1823-1900, American statesman, b. Lancaster, Ohio; brother of William Tecumseh Sherman. He studied law, was admitted (1844) to the bar, and practiced law several years in Mansfield, Ohio, before he moved (1853) to Cleveland. He had been a delegate to the Whig national conventions of 1848 and 1852 and in 1855 presided over the first Republican state convention. A moderate opponent of slavery expansion, he served (1855-61) in the House of Representatives and quickly rose to prominence. Sent (1861) to the Senate to fill a vacancy, he served there until 1877. Sherman became (1867) chairman of the Senate finance committee and played a leading role in government finance in the Reconstruction period. He had supported the Legal Tender Act of 1862 and the National Banking Act of 1863, but he opposed Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch's plan to retire the greenbacks in circulation and pushed a compromise plan for resuming specie payment. Later, however, he forced the Resumption Act of 1875 through the Senate, and as Secretary of the Treasury (1877-81) under President Hayes, he directed the implementation of the act. In 1880, 1884, and 1888 he was considered as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President. Again in the Senate (1881-97), he was associated in 1890 with the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.