Standard Oil Standard Oil Standard Oil Co. Inc. was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refinery in the world of its time. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the United States Supreme Court, in a landmark case, ruled that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly. Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was
Standard Oil Co. v. United States (Standard Stations) of extensive scholarly commentary. Defendant Standard Stations, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of defendant Standard Oil Company of California (Socal) (now named Chevron Corporation), managed gasoline filling stations that Socal owned and leased to independent businessmen. It also supplied gasoline to locally owned and operated filling stations that used the Standard Stations brand name The "Standard Stations" case involved the distribution of petroleum products and automobile accessories. The US oil industry had relatively few producers, each having substantial shares of the market. They were integrated with their retail outlets by requirements contracts. These contracts bound the retail outlets to obtain