Brown Shoe Co., Inc. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294 (1962) is an important US Supreme Court antitrust precedent in which the court upheld a lower court decision where the Federal Trade Commission successfully sued to block a merger between Brown Shoe Company, Inc. was the third-largest seller of shoes in the United States and a leading manufacturer and retailer of shoes and the G.R. Kinney Company, Inc., the eighth-largest seller of shoes and owner of over 350 retail locations. – blocking a vertical merger. The decision has been heavily criticised by academic antitrust lawyers on the basis that vertical mergers should not be regarded as problematic for competition law purposes, particularly by conservatives and libertarians. More recently, the US Antitrust Division and FTC have indicated in instructions to the Hart-Scott-Rodino instructions for merger review filings in the high technology sector that vertical restraints and impact will be closely considered and must be addressed by applicants.