National City Lines
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National City Lines, Inc. (NCL), was a company formed in 1920, reorganized in 1936 into a holding company for the express purpose of acquiring local transit systems throughout the United States.[1] In 1938, NCL entered into exclusive dealing arrangements and obtained equity funding from companies seeking to increase sales of commercial buses and supplies, including General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum, which enabled NCL to buy out more than 100 electric streetcar systems in 45 cities including, but not limited to, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, and Tulsa. Those systems were ultimately dismantled and replaced with bus systems in what became known as the Great American streetcar scandal.
In 1949, General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone Tire and others were convicted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by NCL and other companies; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Walter C. Lindley (January 31, 1951). "UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL CITY LINES, Inc., et al.". United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/770576. Retrieved on 2009-04-05.
