Matthew Powell contributes “A Primer on Resale Price Maintenance” to the August 2017 Michigan Bar Journal. Excerpt: “As the name implies, resale price maintenance (RPM) is an express agreement between a supplier and distributor that sets a maximum or minimum price (or both) at which the distributor can sell the supplier’s products.
This sounds like a practical approach for a supplier wanting to control its products’ prices. But § 1 of the Sherman Act states that every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade is illegal.1 Read literally, this blanket prohibition would reach all types of restraints on trade, including agreements among entities at different levels of the same distribution chain. It’s a good thing, then, that the Supreme Court limited this all-encompassing restriction to apply only to those agreements that unreasonably restrict trade.” Read the rest here: http://www.michbar.org/file/barjournal/article/documents/pdf4article3183.pdf
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