Types of Antitrust Claims

January 5, 2022

2021 Antitrust Developments Affecting Distribution That Flew Under the Radar

Recently, I was researching 2021 antitrust developments to update my Antitrust in Distribution and Franchising book and draft a long article for another publication. That research confirmed that new government antitrust enforcers and their actions gathered the most attention last year — but this blog covered those issues already, such as here and here and here. This post discusses the private antitrust litigation developments affecting distribution that I uncovered but that might have flown under your radar.

Refusal to Deal and Predatory Pricing

Despite the impression left by the mainstream media, not all antitrust cases involving claims of monopolization involved Amazon or Facebook. Other defendants faced claims of gaining or maintaining a monopoly through refusals to deal or predatory pricing schemes.

Careful readers will recall the anticipation last year that Viamedia Inc. v. Comcast Corp. might generate a Supreme Court opinion on refusal to deal issues. Here, the defendant monopolist had stopped dealing with the plaintiff after years of doing so and, allegedly, caused competitive harm. The district court had dismissed the refusal to deal claim by explicitly following the Tenth Circuit’s opinion in Novell, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., authored by then-Judge Gorsuch, because it found that the defendant’s conduct was not “irrational but for its anticompetitive effect.” The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding the court’s application of the Novell standard inappropriate at the motion to dismiss stage when a plaintiff need only plausibly allege anticompetitive conduct even if the defendant might later try to prove a procompetitive rationale.

The defendant sought Supreme Court review and the Justices asked for the views of the Solicitor General. The Solicitor General did not recommend that the Court hear the appeal. In June, the Court denied the writ of certiorari. After remand, the plaintiff chose to drop its refusal to deal theory of the case and proceed only on a claim of illegal tying. Therefore, the opinion will stand and future monopolist defendants, at least in the Seventh Circuit, will have more difficulty dismissing refusal-to-deal claims. Instead of simply asserting that some rational potential procompetitive purpose or effect is self-evident from the complaint, the defendant will have to show that the allegations do not raise any plausible anticompetitive purpose or effect, a much more difficult burden.

In another refusal to deal case, OJ Commerce LLC v. KidKraft, LP, the defendant won summary judgment on plaintiff’s refusal-to-deal claim. Plaintiff was a discounting online retailer that had sold defendant’s products, including children’s wooden play kitchens, for years. An affiliate of plaintiff then began making wooden play kitchens that plaintiff also sold on its website. Defendant objected, claiming that the affiliates’ kitchens were knock-offs of defendant’s products and that plaintiff’s sales of defendant’s products were plummeting. Eventually, defendant terminated its relationship with plaintiff, who then sued alleging illegal monopolization through a refusal to deal.

The court began with the proposition that even a monopolist is not required to do business with a rival. The court recognized that the Supreme Court had found an exception to that proposition in Aspen Skiing Co. but only if defendant’s termination of prior conduct was irrational but for its anticompetitive effect. The court found “this is hardly the case here” as the defendant had shown several other potential explanations for its termination of plaintiff. As a result, the court granted defendant’s summary judgment motion.

Predatory pricing remains a popular claim by plaintiffs against alleged monopolists, despite the difficult standard for such claims imposed by the Supreme Court. In such claims, the plaintiff alleges that the defendant’s extraordinarily low prices will drive out competitors, which in turn will allow the defendant to later raise prices and harm consumers. In Brooke Group, the Court set a difficult standard to meet because “there is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful.” Also, it can be difficult to distinguish low pro-competitive prices from predatorily low ones. Subsequent plaintiffs have found it difficult to successfully allege, let alone win, such claims.

Last year, we described an exception where a defunct ride-hailing company’s predatory pricing claims against Uber survived a motion to dismiss. In 2021, a taxi company was not as successful and its similar claims were dismissed (although other non-antitrust claims survived). In Desoto Cab Co. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., the court dismissed the claim because the plaintiff did not allege barriers to entry or expansion for new or existing competitors sufficient to allow defendant to recoup its losses. Plaintiff’s mere invocation of network effects without any allegations regarding how they might create entry barriers in this market also was not enough. Finally, unlike the plaintiff in last year’s case, this plaintiff failed to allege why Lyft no longer could prevent defendant’s recoupment through higher prices.

Tying and Agreement

2021 also brought opinions on some of the basic elements of a tying claim and what facts amounted to an agreement.

One element of a successful tying claim is that the defendant is selling two separate products, the tying and the tied product. To make that determination, courts must find that “there is a sufficient demand for the purchase of [the tied product] separate from [the tying product] to identify a distinct product market in which it is efficient to offer [the former] separately from [the latter].” In AngioDynamics, Inc. v. C.R. Bard, Inc., the court denied competing summary judgment motions from the parties on this question. The defendant had sought and received regulatory approval to sell the tied product separately; however, it had actually made only a few such sales and then just to a single customer. The only other competitor that sold both products did sell them separately; however, it was not clear that its conditions were identical to defendant’s. The court, therefore, could not determine as a matter of law that the consumer demand was sufficient to make it efficient for defendant to offer the tied product separately.

For every Sherman Act Section 1 case, a successful plaintiff must show an agreement between defendant and some other entity. To meet that burden at summary judgment or trial, plaintiff must present “evidence that tends to exclude the possibility that the [the defendants] were acting independently.” In a typical distribution case, a terminated distributor claims an anticompetitive agreement between its supplier and some other distributor, usually based on some complaints about the terminated distributor to the supplier from the other distributor.

Continue reading →

November 15, 2021

Classic Antitrust Cases: Leegin and Resale-Price Maintenance Agreements

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Some antitrust questions are easy: Is naked price-fixing among competitors a Sherman Act violation? Yes, of course it is. Indeed, it is a per se antitrust violation.

But there is one issue that is not only a common occurrence but also a source of great controversy among antitrust attorneys and commentators: Is price-fixing between manufacturers and distributors (or retailers) an antitrust violation? This is usually called a resale-price-maintenance agreement and it really isn’t clear if it violates the antitrust laws.

For many years, resale-price maintenance—called RPM by those in the know—was on the list of the most forbidden of antitrust conduct, a per se antitrust violation. It was up there with horizontal price fixing, market allocation, bid rigging, and certain group boycotts and tying arrangements.

There was a way around a violation, known as the Colgate exception, whereby a supplier would unilaterally develop a policy that its product must be sold at a certain price or it would terminate dealers. This well-known exception was based on the idea that, in most situations, companies had no obligation to deal with any particular company and could refuse to deal with distributors if they wanted. Of course, if the supplier entered a contract with the distributor to sell the supplier’s products at certain prices, that was an entirely different story. The antitrust law brought in the cavalry in those cases.

You can read our article about the Colgate exception here: The Colgate Doctrine and Other Alternatives to Resale-Price-Maintenance Agreements.

In 2007, the Supreme Court dramatically changed the landscape when it decided Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. (Kay’s Closet). The question presented to the Supreme Court in Leegin was whether to overrule an almost 100-year old precedent (Dr. Miles Medical Co.) that established the rule that resale-price maintenance was per se illegal under the Sherman Act.

Continue reading →

July 26, 2021

Does an Exclusive-Dealing Agreement Violate the Antitrust Laws?

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Sometimes parties will enter a contract whereby one agrees to buy (or supply) all of its needs (or product) to the other. For example, a supplier and retailer might agree that only the supplier’s product will be sold in the retailer’s stores. This usually isn’t free as the supplier will offer something—better services, better prices, etc.—to obtain the exclusivity.

If you compete with the party that receives the benefit of the exclusive deal, this sort of contract can seem quite aggravating. After all, you have a great product, you offer a competitive price, and you know that your service is better. Then why is the retailer only buying from your competitor? Shouldn’t you deserve at least a chance? Isn’t that what the antitrust and competition laws are for?

Maybe. But most exclusive-dealing agreements are both pro-competitive and legal under the antitrust laws. That doesn’t mean that you can’t ever bring an antitrust action and it doesn’t mean you won’t win. But, percentage-wise, most exclusive-dealing arrangements don’t implicate the antitrust laws and are uncontroversial.

You can read our article about exclusive dealing at the Bona Law website here.

It is important that I deflate your expectations a little bit at the beginning like this because if you are on the outside looking in at an exclusive-dealing agreement, you are probably angry and you may feel helpless. From your perspective, it will certainly seem like an antitrust violation. And your gut feeling about certain conduct is a good first filter about whether you have an antitrust claim. What I am trying to tell you is that with regard to exclusive dealing, your gut may offer some false positives.

Of course, the market is full of exclusive or partial-exclusive dealing agreements and there are relatively few of these that turn into federal antitrust litigation. So if you see an exclusive-dealing claim in federal litigation, it may be one of the rare instances of an exclusive-dealing antitrust violation. We receive a lot of calls about exclusive-dealing agreements that are antitrust violations or close to antitrust violations. And we counsel clients on their own exclusive-dealing agreements. But people don’t call us for most varieties of exclusive dealing, which is perfectly legal under the antitrust laws.

So what is an exclusive dealing agreement?

An exclusive dealing agreement occurs when a seller agrees to sell all or most of its output of a product or service exclusively to a particular buyer. It can also occur in the reverse situation: when a buyer agrees to purchase all or most of its requirements from a particular seller. Importantly, although the term used in the doctrine is “exclusive” dealing, the agreement need not be literally exclusive. Courts will often apply exclusive dealing to partial or de facto exclusive dealing agreements, where the contract involves a substantial portion of the other party’s output or requirements.

Continue reading →

May 7, 2021

Bid-Rigging is a Per Se Violation of the Antitrust Laws

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

In the market, there are many ways to buy and sell products or services.

For example, if you want to purchase some whey protein powder, you can walk into a store, go to the protein or smoothie-ingredient section, examine the prices of the different brands, and if one of them is acceptable to you, carry that protein powder to the register and pay the listed price.

Similarly, if you want to purchase a Fitbit Sense, you find the Fitbit manufacturer’s product in a store or online and pay the listed price. Oftentimes products like this, from a specific manufacturer, are the same price wherever you look because of resale price maintenance or a Colgate policy (to be clear, I am not aware of whether Fitbit has any such program or policy). But these vertical price arrangements are not the subject of this article.

Another approach—and the true subject of this article—is to accept bids to purchase a product or service. Governments often send out what are called Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to fulfill the joint goals of obtaining the best combination of price and service/product and to minimize favoritism (which doesn’t always work).

But private companies and individuals might also request bids. Have you ever renovated your house and sought multiple bids from contractors? If so, that is what we are talking about. If you’ve done this as a real-estate investor, you should read our real-estate blog too.

What is Bid-Rigging?

Let’s say you are a bidder and you know that two other companies are also bidding to supply tablets and related services to a business that provides its employees with tablets. The bids are blind, which means you don’t know what the other companies will bid.

You will likely calculate your own costs, add some profit margin, try to guess what the other companies will bid, then bid the best combination of price, product, and services that you can so the buyer picks your company.

This approach puts the buyer in a good position because each of the bidders doesn’t know what the others will bid, so each potential seller is motivated to put together the best offer they can. The buyer can then pick which one it likes best.

But instead of bidding blind, what if you met ahead of time with the other two bidding companies and talked about what you were going to bid? You could, in fact, decide among the three of you which one of you will win this bid, agreeing to allow the others to win bids with other buying companies. In doing this, you will save a lot of money and hassle.

The reason is that you don’t have to put forth your best offer—you just have to bid something that the buyer will take if it is the best of the three bids. You can arrange among the three bidders for the other two bidders to either not bid (which may arouse suspicion) or you could arrange for them to bid a much worse package, so your package looks the best. The three bidders can then rotate this arrangement for other requests for proposals. Or you offer each other subcontracts from the “winner.”

If you did this, you’d save a lot of money, in the short run.

Of course, in the medium and long run, you might learn more about criminal antitrust law and end up in jail. You could also find yourself on the wrong side of civil antitrust litigation.

This is what is called bid-rigging. It is one of the most severe antitrust violations—so much so that the courts have designated it a per se antitrust violation.

Bid rigging is also a criminal antitrust violation that can lead to jail time. And it often leads to civil antitrust litigation too. Many years ago, when I was still with DLA Piper, I spent a lot of time on a case that included bid-rigging allegations in the insurance and insurance brokerage industries called In re Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Litigation.

Continue reading →

April 3, 2021

What Are the Elements for a Monopolization Claim under the Federal Antitrust Laws?

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Do you or your competitor have a monopoly in a particular market? If so, your conduct or their conduct might enter Sherman Act, Section 2 territory, which we call monopolization.

If you are in Europe or other jurisdictions outside of the United States, instead of monopoly, people will refer to the company with extreme market power as “dominant.”

Of course, it isn’t illegal itself to be a monopolist or dominant (and monopoly is profitable). But if you utilize your monopoly power or obtain or enhance your market power improperly, you might run afoul of US, EU, or other antitrust and competition laws.

In the United States, Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it illegal for anyone (person or entity) to “monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations.” But monopoly, by itself, is not illegal. Nor is it illegal for a monopolist to engage in competition on the merits.

As an aside, I have heard, informally, from companies that are considered “dominant” in Europe that the label of “dominant” effectively diminishes their ability to engage in typical competitive behavior because they are under such heavy scrutiny by EU Competition authorities.

If you are interested in learning more about abuse of dominance in the EU, read this article.

In the United States, monopolists have more flexibility, but they are still under significant pressure and could face lawsuits or government investigations at any time, even when they don’t intend to violate the antitrust laws. There is often a fine line between strong competition on the merits and exclusionary conduct by a monopolist.

Here are the elements of a claim for monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act:

The possession of monopoly power in the relevant market.
The willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.

This looks simple, only two basic elements, but it isn’t.

The Possession of Monopoly Power in the Relevant Market

To determine whether an entity has monopoly power, courts and agencies usually first define the relevant market, then analyze whether the firm has “monopoly” power within that market.

But because the purpose of that analysis is to figure out whether certain conduct or an arrangement harms competition or has the potential to do so, evidence of the actual detrimental effects on competition might obviate the need for a full market analysis. If you want to learn more about this point, read FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists (and subsequent case law and commentary).

Sometimes this element leads to difficult questions about the line between monopoly power in a relevant market and something slightly less than that. Other times, the monopoly-power element comes down to how the court will define the relevant market. A broader market definition may create a finding of no monopoly power, while a more narrow definition means the powerful company has monopoly power.

Continue reading →

March 5, 2021

Dividing Markets and Customers: Are Market Allocation Agreements Per Se Antitrust Violations?

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Have you ever considered the idea that your business would be much more profitable if you didn’t have to compete so hard with that pesky competitor or group of competitors?

Unless you have no competition—which is great for profits, read Peter Thiel’s book—this notion has probably crossed your mind. And that’s okay—the government doesn’t indict and prosecute the antitrust laws for what is solely in your mind, at least not yet.

But, except in limited instances, you should definitely not divide markets or customers with your competitors. Indeed, you shouldn’t even discuss the idea with your competitors, or, really, anyone (many antitrust cases are made on inconveniently worded internal emails).

The reason that you shouldn’t discuss it is that market-allocation agreements are one of the few types of conduct that the antitrust laws consider so bad they attach the label “per se antitrust violation.” The other per se antitrust offenses are price-fixing, bid-rigging, maybe tying, and sometimes group boycotts.

What is a Market-Allocation Agreement?

When competitors divide a market in which they can compete into sections in which one or more competitors decline to compete in favor of others, they have entered into a market-allocation agreement.

The antitrust problem with a market-allocation agreement is that a group of customers experience a reduction in the number of suppliers that serve them. The companies dividing the markets benefit, of course, because they have less competition for at least some of the market, which means that it is easier to raise prices or reduce quality.

It doesn’t matter, from an antitrust perspective, how the competitors divide the markets or even whether they both end up competing for that product or service after the agreement.

For an obvious example, ponder a small town with two large real-estate brokerage businesses—Northern Real Estate Brokers and Southern Real Estate Brokers. A river flows through the town, roughly dividing it into northern and southern regions. The Northern Real Estate Brokers mostly attract clients north of the river and the Southern Real Estate Brokers usually service clients south of the river. But the river is passable; there is a bridge and it isn’t that big of a river anyway. So sometimes agents of each brokerage will participate in transactions on the other side river from their normal client base.

Late one evening, in the middle of the bridge, the leaders of the two companies meet and agree that from that point on, each company would only represent sellers for properties on their side of the river.

This is a market-allocation agreement and the leaders could find themselves in antitrust litigation, or even jail (the Department of Justice will often prosecute per se antitrust violations).

While the geographic boundary created an obvious method for the two companies to divide markets, they also could have agreed not to steal each other’s existing customers (market allocation based upon incumbency, which is common). So if a real estate agent from the northern brokerage firm won a customer, no agent from the southern brokerage firm would compete for that customer’s business in the future.

This customer allocation agreement is also a per se antitrust violation. To see how this type of antitrust offense can develop in a seemingly innocent way, read our article on the anatomy of a per se antitrust violation.

In this way, the antitrust laws actually encourage stealing customers.

Continue reading →

February 11, 2021

Waiting for Change—Antitrust in Distribution in Early 2021

by Bona Law PC

Author: Steven J. Cernak

Recently, I was researching antitrust developments in 2020 to update my Antitrust in Distribution and Franchising book. While there were several developments last year, what struck me was the large number of potentially drastic changes to antitrust distribution law that started to play out in 2020 but are continuing into 2021. Whether you think of them as shoes to drop or dogs yet to bark, these three potential changes are the key ones to watch in 2021.

Legislative Changes to the Antitrust Laws?

In the Fall of 2020, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued its Majority Report on its lengthy Investigation into Digital Markets. While the bulk of the Report focused on a few big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, the Report also recommended that Congress override several “classic antitrust cases” that allegedly misinterpreted antitrust law applicable to all companies. Because we have covered several of those recommendations in detail already (see below), I will just focus on potential applications to distribution here.

First, the Report recommended overriding Trinko, a case that has made refusal to deal claims against monopolists very difficult to bring, as we detail in the next section. In Trinko, the Court practically limited such claims to those that are nearly identical to the claims in Aspen Skiing, namely that the monopolist ended a prior voluntary course of dealing with the plaintiff for no good reason. Might an override of Trinko make it easier for a plaintiff-retailer to object if a monopolist defendant-retailer kicks the plaintiff off the defendant’s platform?

Second, overriding Trinko might also alter one of its more famous holdings, that the mere possession of monopoly power and the ability to impose “high” prices does not violate Sherman Act Section 2. While most states have price gouging laws, Trinko found that charging a “high” price was not “monopolization.” If Congress overrides Trinko—and adopts the broader “abuse of dominance” standard for Section 2 cases, as the Report also recommends — might we end up with a federal price gouging law?

Third, the Report also is concerned about monopolists charging too low a price and recommends overriding Brooke Group and its “recoupment” requirement for successful predatory pricing claims. As we covered previously, the Supreme Court was worried about discouraging low prices for consumers by companies with large market shares and so adopted a two-part test in Brooke Group that is difficult for plaintiffs to meet. Plaintiffs must show very low prices, usually below average variable costs, plus the probability that the defendant later will be able to raise prices to recoup its losses. If Congress overrides the recoupment prong of Brooke Group, might we see less aggressive pricing from companies with high market shares?

Fourth, overriding the recoupment prong also might revive long-dormant primary line price discrimination claims under Robinson-Patman. While there are few Robinson-Patman claims in total today, all of them are secondary line claims: Manufacturer 1 sells the same commodity to Retailer A at a lower price than to Retailer B, who claims an injury to itself and competition. In Brooke Group, the Court looked at primary line discrimination claims and applied the same two-part test for predatory pricing to primary line claims: Manufacturer 1’s lower prices to Retailer A must be below its average variable costs and Manufacturer 1 must be able to later recoup its losses before a court can find harm to competition and Manufacturer 2. Before Brooke Group, the Supreme Court’s test had been the one from the oft-criticized Utah Pie opinion that focused on the defendant’s intent to lower prices for the entire market. If Congress overrides the recoupment prong of Brooke Group, might we see price discrimination claims from manufacturers who cannot, or do not want to, match the lower prices of their competitors?

As of this writing, Sen. Amy Klobuchar has introduced legislation that would drastically change the antitrust laws. While most of the proposed changes relate to merger review, the proposed legislation would expand the definition of “exclusionary conduct” subject to the antitrust laws and create a presumption that such conduct by “dominant firms” is anticompetitive. Might we see changes to the antitrust laws that drastically change how manufacturers, distributors, and retailers deal with one another?

Supreme Court Weighs in on Refusal to Deal Law?

As we have discussed several times (see here, here, and here), the courts are skeptical of claims that a monopolist’s refusal to deal with some other company, usually a competitor, is monopolization. Generally, even a monopolist has no duty to deal with its competitors. One of the few exceptions is when the facts are very close to Aspen Skiing where the Court did find such a violation of a duty to deal.

In Aspen Skiing, the Court found a refusal to deal violation because of what it saw as the defendant’s decision to terminate a “voluntary (and thus presumably profitable) course of dealing” and its “willingness to forego short-term profits to achieve an anti-competitive end.” Many refusal to deal claims flounder because the defendant and plaintiff had never entered any sort of “course of dealing.” But even if that prong is met, many lower court judges, such as then-Judge Gorsuch in the 10^th Circuit’s Novell case, emphasize that a monopolist might “forego short-term profits” but for pro-competitive ends. Those cases, therefore, require a plaintiff to show that defendant’s conduct is “irrational but for its anticompetitive effect.”

The District Court in Viamedia, Inc. v. Comcast Corp. granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the refusal to deal claim, despite termination of a prior voluntary course of dealing, because the “potentially improved efficiency” resulting from the termination showed that the move was not “irrational but for its anticompetitive effect.”

The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that a plaintiff only must allege that defendant’s termination was “predatory.” As the concurring judge described it, a plaintiff need only allege some anticompetitive goal for the termination. A defendant’s assertion of other, procompetitive, rationales for the conduct was a question for summary judgment, not a motion to dismiss. If allowed to stand, the court’s ruling would make it much easier for refusal to deal plaintiffs to survive to discovery, thereby encouraging more such claims.

Comcast petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari and in December 2020, the Court sought the views of the Solicitor General. Any response from the Solicitor General could indicate whether the Biden Administration supports any change, large or small, as to how the Court has interpreted the Sherman Act in refusal to deal cases. Might the Court weigh in on refusal to deal monopolization cases and, if so, how would such an opinion affect the chances of new antitrust legislation?

Changes Driven by Amazon?

Of course, we could not post about distribution and antitrust and not mention Amazon. As we discussed earlier, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos was one of several big tech executives who testified at a Fall 2020 Congressional hearing. At the time, we described some potential antitrust claims raised by that testimony and concluded that ones alleging illegal tying or monopolization had the best chance of succeeding—and that even those faced some real questions.

Continue reading →

January 5, 2021

Classic Antitrust Cases: Will Congress Override Brooke Group, Matsushita, and Weyerhaeuser—and Resurrect Utah Pie?

by Bona Law PC

By: Steven J. Cernak

As we described in a prior post, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Majority Report of its Investigation into Digital Markets included a number of recommendations that went beyond digital markets, including overriding several classic antitrust cases. One of the Report’s recommendations is to make it easier for plaintiffs to bring predatory pricing and buying monopolization cases by overriding the “recoupment prong” in Brooke Group, Matsushita, and Weyerhaeuser. While such action would drastically alter monopolization law, it also might inadvertently (?) revive another classic antitrust case, Utah Pie, and certain Robinson-Patman price discrimination claims long considered dead.

Predatory Pricing Under Brooke Group and Matsushita

We covered Brooke Group and predatory pricing in a prior post and so just summarize it here. Sherman Act Section 2 claims for monopolization can be lodged only against “monopolists” that are “monopolizing,” that is, acting in a way to maintain that monopoly. There is no general test to judge a monopolist’s actions; instead, courts have developed different tests for different actions, including predatory pricing.

Predatory pricing is pricing below some level of cost so as to eliminate competitors in the short run and reduce competition in the long run. The Brooke Group Court established a two-part test for such claims: ”the prices complained of are below an appropriate measure of its rival’s costs … [and the defendant] had a … dangerous probability of recouping its investment in below-cost prices.”

While the Report did not express any concerns about the “below an appropriate measure of costs” prong, its one example (Amazon’s pricing of diapers) just described the pricing as “below cost.” Lower courts have developed a standard that finds prices “below an appropriate measure of costs” only if they are below some measure of the monopolist’s incremental costs, like average variable costs. It is not clear if the Report’s authors want to modify this prong as well.

Under the recoupment prong, a plaintiff must show that the monopolist has the capability to drive out the plaintiff and other competitors plus keep them (and other potential competitors) out so it can later raise prices and “recoup” its losses. Such a showing requires an analysis of the relative strengths of the competitors and the attributes of the market, such as high entry barriers.

The Brooke Group test has been difficult for predatory pricing plaintiffs to meet — as the Supreme Court intended, for two reasons. First, the Court thought it would be difficult for courts to distinguish between competitive low prices and predatorily low ones. Because “cutting prices in order to increase business is often the very essence of competition,” the Court was concerned that an easier test would deter low prices that benefit consumers.

Second, the Court had earlier in Matsushita expressed skepticism that such competitively harmful predatory pricing schemes occurred often: “there is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful.” As we covered in different prior posts, while Matsushita does concern predatory pricing, its holding is more concerned with the appropriate standard for summary judgment in any antitrust case; because the “consensus” quote has been repeated in nearly every predatory pricing case since Matsushita, however, the Report’s recommendation to override it makes sense.

Weyerhaeuser Extends Recoupment to Predatory Buying and Monopsony

More than a decade after Brooke Group, the Supreme Court in Weyerhaeuser extended its two-part test for predatory pricing by a sell-side monopolist to predatory buying (or overbidding) by a buy-side monopsonist. There, the defendant allegedly purchased 65% of the logs in the region that were a necessary input for lumber. Such alleged overbuying drove up the cost of the input while the price of lumber was going down. These trends led plaintiff, a competing lumber mill, to shut down operations and sue.

Continue reading →

January 3, 2021

Do the Antitrust Laws Prohibit Tying Products or Services Together for Sale?

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Yes, in some instances, “tying” violate the antitrust laws. Whether you arrive at the tying-arrangement issue from the perspective of the person tying, the person buying the tied products, or the person competing with the person tying, you should know when the antitrust laws forbid the practice.

Most vertical agreements—like loyalty discounts, bundling, exclusive dealing, (even resale price maintenance agreements under federal law) etc.—require courts to delve into the pro-competitive and anti-competitive aspects of the arrangements before rendering a judgment. Tying is a little different.

Tying agreements—along with price-fixing, market allocation, bid-rigging, and certain group boycotts—are considered per se antitrust violations. That is, a court need not perform an elaborate market analysis to condemn the practice because it is inherently anticompetitive, without pro-competitive redeeming virtues. Even though tying is often placed in this category, it doesn’t quite fit there either. Again, it is a little different.

Proving market power isn’t typically required for practices considered per se antitrust violations, but it is for tying. And business justifications don’t, as a rule, save the day for per se violations either. But, in certain limited circumstances, a defendant to an antitrust action premised on tying agreements might defend its case by showing exactly why they tied the products they did.

At this stage, you might be asking, “what the heck is tying?” Do the antitrust laws prohibit certain types of knots? Do they insist that everyone buy shoes with Velcro instead of shoestrings? The antitrust laws can be paternalistic, but they don’t go that far.

A tying arrangement is where a customer may only purchase a particular item (the “tying” item) if the customer agrees to purchase a second item (the “tied” item), or at least agree not to purchase that second item from the seller’s competitors. It is sort of like bundling, but there is an element of express coercion.

With bundling, a seller may offer a lower combined price to buyers that purchase two or more items, but the buyers always have the right to just purchase one of the items (and forgo the discount). With tying, by contrast, the buyer cannot just purchase the one item; if it wants the first item, it must purchase the second.

Continue reading →

December 19, 2020

Do Bundled Discounts Violate the Antitrust Laws? LePage’s, PeaceHealth, and the Discount-Attribution Test

by Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

Let’s pretend that you sell three different types of protein powder: Whey Protein, Casein Protein, and Pea Protein. You sell them each for $10 per container. But for someone—like myself—that likes to include several types of protein in their morning smoothie, you offer a special deal of $25 total for purchasing all three types of protein at once (compared to $30 at the regular price).

Congratulations, you just offered a bundled discount, the subject of this article.

Should you worry that your bundled discount breached the antitrust laws?

Let’s dig in.

You probably recognized the maneuver above because bundled discounts are pervasive in a market system. Companies like it when customers purchase several products and may thus offer a discount—a reduction in margin—when customers do so. At the same time, customers like discounts, so they may purchase a second, third, or fourth product from the same company to obtain the discount.

So what is the problem?

Well, like many pricing policies, there exist a set of conditions such that certain bundled discounts create anticompetitive harm that exceeds their procompetitive benefits.

That sounds too formal, so let’s try this: Sometimes a big company that sells lots of different products can eliminate its competitors that sell fewer types of products by manipulating the prices of their bundles.

How does that work?

If your company has market or monopoly power, your profits are at least a little extra. This is sometimes called supra-competitive pricing or monopoly profits (or monopoly rents if you prefer economist-speak). If that is your world, you worry about not just competing, but also about maintaining your extra level of profits that only exist with market or monopoly power.

Because these extra profits can be so significant, those that have market or monopoly power will burn extraordinary resources to hold onto that power. This, of course, is one of the wasteful aspects of monopoly—the resources that go into maintaining it.

You must keep feeding the monopoly beast or it may grow weak and competition will kill it.

Anyway, monopolists are brilliant at manipulating pricing to exclude their competitors. And even though bundled discounts are usually pro-competitive, a monopolist in certain situations can employ them to exclude competition and protect their market power and, thus, their outsized profits.

In what situation can a monopolist manipulate bundled discounting to maintain or extend their monopoly?

Let’s turn to an actual case that made it to the Third Circuit a couple years after I graduated from law school: LePage’s, Inc. v. 3M, 324 F.3d 141 (3d Cir. 2003).

You’ve probably heard of 3M—Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. They are based in Saint Paul, Minnesota and they are important to the community. I am from Minnesota, originally, and as a local, you hear a lot of good about this innovative company. (Bona Law also has a Minnesota office).

3M makes many products, but relevant to this Third Circuit case, they manufacturer transparent tape (under the Scotch brand)—just like their upstart competitor, LePage’s. I am speaking, of course, from the time perspective of the lawsuit. I am certain that 3M still makes transparent tape, but I haven’t kept up with LePage’s.

Anyway, unlike LePage’s, 3M also made many other products that they sold to major customers that purchased their Scotch tape. Importantly, 3M had monopoly power in the market for transparent tape.

So, according to the lawsuit, here is what 3M did: They offered discounts to major customers (retailers, etc.) conditioned on those customers purchasing products from each of six of 3M’s product lines. 3M linked the size of the rebate to the number of product lines in which the customer met purchasing targets. And the number of targets (i.e. minimum purchases in separate product lines) would determine the rebate that the customer would receive on all of its purchases. So each customer had a substantial incentive to meet targets across all product lines, to maximize the discounts/rebates.

LePage’s sold transparent tape, but not all of the other products. So they didn’t stand a chance to compete because the customers for transparent tape would purchase from 3M because by doing so, they receive substantial discounts on a bunch of other products too.

The Third Circuit explained that “[t]he principal anticompetitive effect of bundled rebates as offered by 3M is that when offered by a monopolist, they may foreclose portions of the market to a potential competitor who does not manufacture an equally diverse group of products and who therefore cannot make a comparable offer.” (155).

Of course, if there were a competitor of 3M, even separate from LePage’s, that could offer these product lines, the Court may have held that there wasn’t anticompetitive harm or antitrust injury.

If you are inclined toward numbers, you might spit out your drink and say—“Gosh darn it! Hold on a Second! How do we know whether the discount forecloses the market or is even anticompetitive without getting into the actual prices and discounts? If LePage’s is super inefficient or insists on crazy-high prices, should they really be able to utilize the machinery of the federal government to stop a benevolent monopolist from reducing their prices?”

Good instincts!

LePage’s was a controversial decision for that reason. While 3M’s bundling could have been anticompetitive, the Court didn’t go deep enough into the analysis to really understand if they were.

For some number crunching, let’s travel west to the Ninth Circuit and see what they did a few years later in Cascade Health Solutions v. PeaceHealth, 515 F.3d 973 (updated Feb. 1, 2008).

The Discount-Attribution Test for Bundled Discounts

In PeaceHealth, the Ninth Circuit overturned a jury verdict against defendant for violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act by bundling (among other conduct). The trial court erred in providing the jury with a LePage’s instruction on bundling that didn’t include specific price-cost requirements.

Continue reading →