Author: Jarod Bona In an earlier article, we discussed Leegin and the controversial issue of resale-price maintenance agreements under the federal antitrust laws. We’ve also written about these agreements here. And these issues often come up when discussing Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) Policies, which you can read about here. As…
Author: Jarod Bona The US Supreme Court said in 1986 that “[T]here is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful.” This was the famous Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. case that is known mostly for stating that to…
Author: Steven Cernak Your much larger competitor sells the same products as you do but at a much lower price, so low you think that it must be losing money on each sale. Can such “predatory pricing” ever violate the antitrust laws? It is a very difficult monopolization case to…
Author: Luis Blanquez Good news––the answer is yes. The bad news, however, is that antitrust laws only help you in very limited scenarios. As a general rule, “Businesses are free to choose the parties with whom they deal, as well as the prices, terms, and conditions of that dealing” Pacific…
Author: Steven Cernak When I first started practicing antitrust law in the “80’s, the Robinson-Patman Act was already an object of derision.¹ With Chicago School thinking riding high in academia and the courts and antitrust law’s focus shifting to effects on consumers, not rivals, RP cases seemed to be dwindling…
Authors: Aaron Gott and Nick McNamara Antitrust conspiracies, like most conspiracies, are typically carried out in secret and often actively concealed by their participants for many years. But the statute of limitations for antitrust claims is only four years. So what happens if you discover that you were harmed by…
Author: Jarod Bona Yes, in certain narrow circumstances, refusing to do business with a competitor violates Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which regulates monopolies, attempts at monopoly, and exclusionary conduct. This probably seems odd—don’t businesses have the freedom to decide whether to do business with someone, especially when that…
Author: Luis Blanquez Luis Blanquez is an antitrust attorney at Bona Law with fifteen years of competition experience in different jurisdictions within the European Union such as Spain, France, Belgium and the UK. You can read our article about the elements for monopolization under U.S. antitrust law here. We also…
In the most recent issue of The Antitrust Law Journal, attorney Sean P. Gates describes several possible approaches to these discounts, analyzing the good and the bad for each. His article, Antitrust by Analogy: Developing Rules for Loyalty Rebates and Bundled Discounts, is really quite good. I identified this article…
This article is cross-posted in both English and French at Thibault Schrepel’s outstanding competition blog Le Concurrentialiste. Like most antitrust issues today, questions about loyalty discounts are relevant across the globe as competition regimes and courts grapple with the best way to address them. Companies like to reward their best customers with discounts. It happens…