Data Proc. Fin. Gen. v. Int'l Bus. Mach

1 Citing case

  1. Johnson Products Co. v. F.T.C.

    549 F.2d 35 (7th Cir. 1977)   Cited 7 times
    Holding that contract law of offer and acceptance did not apply in determining whether a private party could unilaterally withdraw from a consent order prior to its acceptance by the Commission

    In United States v. Swift Co., 286 U.S. 106, 52 S.Ct. 460, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932), for example, the Court summarily rejected the contention that a consent decree should be considered a contract for purposes of determining whether the courts have the power to modify such a decree absent the parties' consent. And, in Control Data Corp. v. International Business Machines Corp., 306 F. Supp. 839 (D.Minn. 1969), aff'd, 430 F.2d 1277 (8th Cir. 1970), the court rejected the argument that a consent decree should be treated as a contract for purposes of determining whether a third party beneficiary action could be maintained for breach of that contract. As Professor Handler has pointed out, treating consent decrees differently in distinct contexts is not inconsistent: