On December 11, 1939, the U.S. Government sued the Ball Brothers, the Hazel-Atlas Glass Co., and the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. under monopoly charges based on the Hartford-Empire and Owens licensing agreements. The plaintiff claimed that small producers were being frozen out of business or prohibited from entering manufacture by the nature of the licenses. Almost a decade later, in 1947, the justices rendered a final verdict. The court prohibited the Ball Brothers from purchasing or otherwise controlling any other businesses engaged in the same manufacturing processes – in other words, the small jar producers. In addition, Ball had to divest itself of the Three Rivers Glass Co. (already closed for almost a decade) that Ball had acquired in 1936. Ball sold the property