In place of acting through a vice president, it has acted through a distributor. It has made agents of its distributors, in the same manner that it could make an agent of a corporate official, say its president or vice president, or other officer. True it may be that in some of its relationships with its distributors, it has dealt with them in another capacity. In some instances schwinn beach cruiser some of its distributors have bought merchandise outright from Schwinn and have become owners in their own right. In those cases where a distributor has bought bicycles outright and taken title to them, certainly Schwinn could not prevent it from selling to any franchised dealer, no matter whether the dealer was in the territory assigned to the distributor or not.
Naturally, it should be and must be within easy reach of the customer. At that point, Schwinn had elected to discontinue sales to the large mail order houses. At the same time it found that hardware wholesalers were not a satisfactory outlet for its sales, for the reason that such wholesalers were selling and distributing not bicycles alone, but thousands of other products and that bicycles were an infinitesimal part of their business. Naturally, like Sears, Roebuck Co., and Montgomery Ward, they had no salesmen who were specialists in the bicycle field and they furnished no service after the sale. They usually sold the bicycle in cartons, unassembled, and the purchaser, being no mechanic, often did not properly assemble the bicycle, causing much dissatisfaction and innumerable complaints. The plaintiff introduced evidence of instances where warning letters and comments had been made about dealers who were cutting prices below those fixed by agreements under the fair trade acts of their respective states.
The foregoing restraints are unreasonable under Section 1 of the Sherman Act and are per se violations thereof. The plaintiff has failed to prove that defendants are guilty of a price-fixing scheme contrary to the provisions of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. From and after 1952, territorialization was discussed with approval at most of the meetings of the Schwinn Cycle Distributors Association and that Association had knowledge of and agreed to the territorialization carried on by certain distributors who were members of the Association. It is difficult to see how the dealers were injured and it is not so alleged and there is no evidence that would indicate that to be true. Schwinn determined to make a complete survey and study of the whole market and sales method, and that they did, beginning in 1946, and looking for the trends of the future. Suffice it to say that the court finds nothing in the actions of the defendants wherein they conspired to do any illegal acts contrary to the Sherman Act in their franchising activities.
That grand jury investigation covered the period in which plaintiff charges the conspiracy had its inception, and most of the evidence thereof presented on trial. Neither of these two occurrences was conclusive, either schwinn ebike as a matter of fact or law. Nor have either influenced this court in its findings and conclusions herein. They are mentioned to preserve for the record that this court does not stand alone in its findings herein.
Schwinn says that today Waterford would be
unsustainable as a business building only Waterfords and Gunnars. While the limited Paramount production
represents a reflection of the Schwinn and Waterford history, the launch of
Shinola represents a significant opportunity for its future. Financed by Tom
Kartsosis, the founder of Fossil watches, the company opened in Detroit two years
ago, making high-end watches and bicycles and focusing on the American-made
appeal. It opened a trendy shop in Detroit and a fancy boutique in New York
City to sell its watches and the luxury bikes, the lugged, silver brazed
Runwell and the tig welded Bixby, at $2,950 and $1,950 respectively.
There was still a very large distribution by direct sales to individual retailers all over the United States. Some of them were local hardware stores, others small general merchants, or toy stores. There was still another specialty type of merchant that like Topsy “just growed.” That was the bicycle repair shop.
A growing number of US teens and young adults were purchasing imported European sport racing or sport touring bicycles, many fitted with multiple derailleur-shifted gears. Schwinn decided to meet the challenge by developing two lines of sport or road ‘racer’ bicycles. One was already in the catalog — the limited production Paramount series. As always, the Paramount spared no expense; the bicycles were given high-quality lightweight lugged steel frames using double-butted tubes of Reynolds 531 and fitted with quality European components including Campagnolo derailleurs, hubs, and gears. The Paramount series had limited production numbers, making vintage examples quite rare today.