 In 1940, Socony-Vacuum's gasoline buying practices led to the major antitrust law case "United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co." The case originated with Socony-Vacuum's practices of organizing a cartel among the "major" oil companies in which they bought oil—known as "hot oil"—from independent producers and stored the surplus in tanks to limit the supply of oil available on the market and keep the price of oil artificially high.In its decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that regardless of the purpose of the price fixing or if the prices varied, such conduct was illegal in and of itself