Court case[1892] AC 25

Several shipowners engaged in carrying tea from China to England formed an association (a "conference") to keep the trade in their own hands. They offered a rebate of five per cent on freight to all shippers who shipped tea exclusively in the association's vessels, threatened to withdraw their agents from ports where outsiders competed, and lowered freights to a level at which the competition became unprofitable. The plaintiff company, a shipowner outside the association, was excluded from the association and, unable to compete, lost business in the trade. It sued the members of the association for damages, alleging a conspiracy to injure it.

The House of Lords, affirming the Court of Appeal (where Bowen LJ gave a celebrated judgment on the limits of competition), held that no action lay. The defendants' object was to protect and extend their own trade and increase their profits, not to injure the plaintiff for its own sake; the means they used - lowering freights, offering rebates and refusing to employ agents who acted for rivals - were not in themselves unlawful, involving no violence, fraud, intimidation or breach of contract. Competition, however severe and however damaging to a rival, is not a legal wrong when carried on by lawful means. The plaintiff had suffered loss, but no legal right of it had been infringed.