573 Opinion of the Court. tion, and the only one we find it necessary to consider, is whether the choice of forums given to the plaintiff by § 12 is subject to qualification by judicial application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The suit was brought by the United States against nine corporations for alleged violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2. The basic charge is that the appellees conspired to acquire control of local transportation companies in numerous cities located in widely different parts of the United States, and to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in motorbusses, petroleum supplies, tires and tubes sold to those companies, contrary to the Act's prohi 3 2 These, with the states of their incorporation and their principal places of business, are as follows: 3 Forty-four cities in sixteen states are included. The states are as widely scattered as California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas and Washington. The larger local transportation systems include those of Baltimore, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Oakland. The largest concentrations of smaller systems are in Illinois, with eleven cities; California with nine (excluding Los Angeles); and Michigan with four. The local operating companies were not named as parties defendant. 334 U.S. bitions. Opinion of the Court. Injunctive and other relief of an equitable nature was sought.5 The appellees filed various motions, including the one involved in this appeal. It sought dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the District Court for the Southern District of California was not a convenient forum for the trial. This motion was supported by a showing not only of inconvenience to the defendants of trial in the California district, but also that the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Chicago), would be the most convenient forum for them. The showing was by affidavits, executed by officers, attorneys and employees of the corporate defendants. The appellee companies fall into two groups. The largest, which may be called the supplier group, includes the six last named in note 2 above. Except Federal, they are engaged in producing and distributing the commodities purchased by the local operating companies, the sale of which is charged to be monopolized and restrained. Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard, engaged in managing investments for Standard. The other group, including the first three companies listed in note 2, is collectively called City Lines. National is a holding company with operations directed from Chicago. American and Pacific are its subsidiaries. The three own, control or have substantial interests in the operating companies. The complaint charges that the supplier appellees furnish capital to City Lines for acquiring control of the local operating systems, upon the understanding that City Lines cause all requirements of the local systems in busses, petroleum products, tires and tubes to be purchased from the supplier appellees and no other sellers. 5 The prayer of the complaint sought complete divestiture of the supplier appellees' financial interests in City Lines; partial divestiture of City Lines' interests in local transportation companies; voiding of existing contracts between the supplier appellees and City Lines; and an injunction against purchases from those suppliers by City Lines or their operating companies, except in accordance with a competitive bidding plan to be included in the decree. In highly attenuated summary the showing was that the transactions creating the core of the charged conspiracy took place chiefly 573 Opinion of the Court. Counteraffidavits were filed in opposition on behalf of the Government." After oral argument, the District Court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law together with a written opinion, substantially accepting appellees' showing and sustaining the motion. 7 F. R. D. 456. Accordingly it entered judgment dismissing the complaint, but without prejudice to the institution of a similar suit against the named defendants "in a more appropriate and convenient forum." This decision is brought to us for review on direct appeal pursuant to the statutes applicable in such cases.8 It is not disputed that the District Court has jurisdiction in the basic sense of power to hear and determine the cause or that it has venue within the provisions of § 12. Nor can it be questioned that any of the defendants can be brought personally within that court's jurisdiction by service of process made in accordance with in or near Chicago; appellees' chief witnesses and documentary evidence are located there; their transportation to Los Angeles and extended presence there will cause great hardship; no defendant "resides" or has its principal office or place of business in the California district (cf. note 2); and two trials in distant cities, see text infra at note 41, will greatly magnify the hardship. See 7 F. R. D. 456, 465. "The Government stresses that three of the five supplier defendants transact business and are "found," cf. note 1, in the California district; the volume of sales allegedly restrained is much greater on the Pacific Coast than elsewhere; substantial portions of the evidence, oral and documentary, will be produced from California, etc. Cf. 7 F. R. D. 456, 465. 8 32 Stat. 823, 36 Stat. 1167, 15 U. S. C. § 29; 43 Stat. 938, 28 U.S. C. § 345. It is conceded that three of the defendants, Standard, General Motors, and Firestone, transact business within the Southern District of California. The others apparently were served either pursuant to the concluding clause of § 12 or pursuant to §5 of the Sherman Act. See note 10 infra. Opinion of the Court. 334 U.S. the provisions of either § 12, or those of § 5 of the Sherman Act. The only question presented concerning the court's power is whether, having jurisdiction and venue of the cause and personal jurisdiction of the defendants, the court also was authorized to decline to exercise its jurisdiction upon finding, without abuse of discretion, that the forum was not a convenient one within the scope of the non-statutory doctrine commonly, though not too accurately, labeled forum non conveniens. It would serve no useful purpose to review in detail the reasoning or the authorities upon which the District Court ruled the doctrine applicable in such cases as this, or therefore the further groundings upon which it proceeded in holding the forum inconvenient. For the view has prevailed without qualification during the life of § 12, thirty-four years, that the choice of venues expressly given to the plaintiff is not to be qualified by any power of a court having venue under any of the section's alternatives to decline to exercise the jurisdiction conferred. None of the decisions on which the District Court relied suggested, much less decided, that such a power exists. This therefore is a case of first impression, seeking departure from long-established practice. Moreover, the analogies drawn from other types of cases in which the doctrine has been applied " cannot survive in the face of the section's explicit terms and the patent intent of Congress in enacting it. 11 10 "SEC 5. Whenever it shall appear to the court before which any proceeding under section four of this act may be pending, that the ends of justice require that other parties should be brought before the court, the court may cause them to be summoned, whether they reside in the district in which the court is held or not; and subpoenas to that end may be served in any district by the marshal thereof." 26 Stat. 210, 15 U. S. C. § 5. Section 4 of the Sherman Act (i. e., "this act") refers specifically to civil actions brought by the Government. Cf. Eastman Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U. S. 359, 374. 11 See note 46 infra. 573 Opinion of the Court. In the Scophony case we gave attention to the history of § 12, which as there related is as pertinent to the question now presented as it was to the issues then under consideration.12 Reference to the Scophony opinion, Part I, 333 U. S. at 802-810, will avoid the necessity for repeating the history here in extenso. But its present applicability will be accentuated by recalling that we reaffirmed the ruling in Eastman Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U. S. 359, namely, that § 12 of the Clayton Act had enlarged the venue provision of § 7 of the Sherman Act, with the intent and effect to give the plaintiff the right to bring antitrust proceedings not only in the districts where the corporate defendant "resides or is found," as § 7 had authorized, but also "in any district wherein it . . . transacts business.' 13 14 In the Eastman case, as the Scophony opinion emphasized, the Court had rejected the argument that the addition of "or transacts business" was no more than a redundant reformulation of "is found"; instead it gave the added words broader and less technical meaning than "is found" had acquired under prior decisions. This was done, as the Eastman opinion stated, because accepting the contrary view would have rendered the addition meaningless and defeated the plain remedial purpose of § 12. 273 U. S. at 373. That section, the Court held, supplemented "the remedial provision of the Anti-Trust Act for the redress of injuries resulting from illegal restraints upon interstate trade, by relieving the injured person from the necessity of resorting for the redress of wrongs com 12 In the Scophony case we were concerned, not as here with any question of discretion to decline the exercise of jurisdiction, but in presently pertinent part with the tests of venue prescribed by the section and whether, on the facts presented, those tests had been met, so as to establish venue in the district of suit. 13 See note 1. 14 See United States v. Scophony Corp., 333 U. S. 795, Part I at 802-810. |