It's really not productive to try and trace this back to an obligation to maximize profits. Firstly, it's not true according to the Supreme Court. And secondly,

It's really not productive to try and trace this back to an obligation to maximize profits. Firstly, it's not true according to the Supreme Court. And secondly, even we accept that it's something corporations should do or are doing, there are a million ways to judge what would be the maximally profitable strategy. You could say that they should jack up prices to maximize profits, but that's just one strategy for maximizing profits. They could lower prices in order to gain customer loyalty for example instead. In this case, the limited competition isn't due to market consolidation, it's due to a disease wiping out a load of the supply.