Vertical Price Agreements in the Wake of Leegin v. PSKS: Where Do We Stand Now?* I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS For nearly a century, agreements between retailers and suppliers stipulating a minimum retail price were considered per se violations of the Sherman Act. [1] Resale price maintenance (“RPM”) agreements are contracts in which a manufacturer and a downstream distributor (“retailer”) agree to a minimum or maximum retail price that consumers will pay. Antitrust violations are viewed either under a rule of reason, where evidence of a defendant’s conduct is admissible to explain away the conduct, or as per se illegal, where the government or plaintiff need only prove that the conduct existed for the defendant to be liable. Until 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court’s nearly century-old opinion in
The US Supreme Court overrules prohibition against vertical agreements between manufacturers and their dealers setting minimum resale prices as a per se violation (Leegin Creative)
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