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Gasoline Marketing Divestiture Statutes: A Preliminary Constitutional And Economic Assessment, Hunter M. Meriwether, James C. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note has traced the recent developments in the oil industry and in gasoline marketing that have led to the enactment of divestiture statutes in three states and their consideration by the legislatures in many others. The statutes are essentially of two types: those prohibiting the owning or leasing of marketing outlets by vertically integrated oil companies and those prohibiting or limiting the operation of retail outlets with company employees. Both types of statutes, however, have as their primary aim the exclusion of the majors as competitors at the retail level. This is thought to be necessary to prevent anticompetitive …