American Sugar Refining Company

American Sugar Refining Company was the largest American business unit in the sugar refining industry in the early 1900s. It was incorporated in the state of New Jersey on January 10, 1891. According to the "Encyclopedia of New York City", "The American Sugar Refining Company was the most important firm of the Sugar Trust, and the loose network of companies controlled by the Havemeyers dominated ... American Sugar, accounting directly and indirectly for 98 percent of the national production by 1907." Like its predecessor, the Sugar Refineries Company (1887), it consolidated most of the existing plants with a view to cost reduction and price control and for many years carried the popular sobriquet, "The Sugar Trust". The United States Supreme Court declared in the much-cited Knight case (United States v. E. C. Knight Company), March 24, 1894, that its purchase of the stock of competitors was not a combination in restraint of trade. The company became known as Domino Sugar in 1900.

The combination expanded horizontally for about twenty years as new competitors arose; later it expanded vertically, undertaking the production of cane and raw sugar in Cuba and acquiring lumber interests. The company was investigated by the Industrial Commission in 1900 and by a special congressional committee in 1911-1912. Federal suit for its dissolution begun in 1910 was terminated by consent decree announced December 21, 1921, when it was stated that its effective control of refined sugar had dropped from 72% to 24%.

According to the "Encyclopedia of New York City", "the struggle ended with a settlement in 1922 that allowed the firm to remain intact but forced it to refrain from unfair business practices, and as competition revived, the firm ceased to dominate the industry". After the Great Depression the sugar refining industry declined as alternatives to sugar and modern technology were introduced.