In United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U. S. 673 (1971), it was first determined that the construction of the consent decree urged by the Government was inconsistent with the express terms of the consent decree it was seeking to enforce. The decree involved in Armour was the Meat Packers Consent Decree of 1920, entered in settlement of an antitrust case filed in District Court. Paragraph fourth of the decree enjoined Armour from engaging in certain businesses. The Greyhound Corporation, which was engaged in some of those businesses, acquired control of Armour. The Government claimed that this acquisition was in violation of the consent decree, contending that the purpose of the decree was structurally to separate the meatpackers from the retail food business entirely, and that the relationship between Armour and Greyhound was therefore prohibited. The Court noted that the language of the decree "taken in its natural sense, bars only active conduct on the part of the defendants. . . . The decree does not speak in terms of relationships in general, but, rather, prohibits certain behavior, and in doing so prohibits some but not all economic interrelationship between Armour and the retail food business. . . . In short, we do not find in the decree a structural separation such as the Government claims. . . . The decree leaves gaps inconsistent with so complete a separation." 402 U. S., at 678, 680.