The conspiracy, as executed, "enabled these major companies, through the concerted purchase of a very small percentage of the total available gasoline for distribution in the Standard of Indiana territory, to raise the price to controlled levels and thereby unreasonably and unlawfully to profit on the sale of their own products." The trial lasted nearly four months, during all of which time the jury was kept sequestered and in the custody of the marshal. The record ran to more than 12,000 pages, in addition to over 1,000 exhibits. The district court found the evidence sufficient to support the verdict and denied the defendants' motions for an order setting aside the verdicts and for a new trial, as to the verdicts of guilty against 12 of the indicted corporations and 5 individuals. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the judgment. The court of appeals assumed that the dancing-partner program provided for the purchase of from one-fifth to nearly one-third of the gasoline sold by independent refiners in the Mid-Western field and one-fifth in the East Texas field. The spot market was from 5% to 7½% of the gasoline sold in the relevant territory. The defendants sold about 80% of all gasoline in that territory. Because the spot-market prices varied from day to day, so did the prices at which the defendants sold. These facts, the court of appeals said, made the case dissimilar to "United States v. Trenton Potteries Co.", in which price fixing had been held illegal "per se". Here the price was not fixed at a definite level as it was in "Trenton Potteries". Therefore, the "per se" rule of that case should not be applied here. Rather, the case here is similar to "Appalachian Coals, Inc. v. United States", which allowed an arrangement by coal companies to eliminate distress coal in "making, an honest effort to remove abuses, to make competition fairer, and thus to promote the essential interests of commerce." The depressed state of the industry "affords justification for the action of the defendants in treating surplus gasoline as an evil of the industry and in making a concerted effort to eliminate the same with a view of stabilizing the market, even though an increase in price might result; provided, of course, the program, either as planned or executed, did not go so far as to constitute an unreasonable restraint by unduly suppressing or interfering with fair competition. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial.