Oil and Antitrust: The Oil Cartel Case and the Cold War

Nowhere was the postwar growth of multinational corporations more dramatic than in the petroleum industry. The major oil companies of the western nations were soon banded together in a complex of joint exploration, producing, refining, and marketing organizations. But efforts to advance criminal prosecution of the American companies under the antitrust laws soon ran head-on into overriding considerations of national security. The hardening of the Cold War, complicated by internal political weaknesses in Iran, persuaded both President Truman and President Eisenhower to soft-pedal litigation. In the end, criminal prosecution of joint production enterprises became civil suits against marketing and pricing agreements, which were settled by consent decree. This, according to Professor Kaufman, amounted to attacking “the tail but not the head or body of the energy tiger.”