Judge Richard P. Matsch granted summary judgment to Montrose County rejecting JetAway’s allegation that the county acted anticompetitively in awarding rival Jet Center Partners LLC a contract to operate the county’s small airport. The plaintiff alleged the count engaged in bid rigging by awarding the contract before issuing the RFP. But the court held that sort of conduct does not violate the Sherman Act. “The plaintiff admits,” the court explained “that the size of the business opportunity at the airport limits that market to a single … operator.” The antitrust laws do not restraint one monopolist “from the aggressive efforts” to replace another.
Judge Matsch also wrote that the Sherman Act distinguished “between the purpose of the antitrust laws to protect competition in the business world and the political decisions of governmental officials, even when those decisions have been infected by selfishly motivated agreement with private interests.”