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The Robinson-Patman Act and competition: Unfinished business

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... discrimination (that one that puts other buyers at a competitive disadvantage pursuant a demand by other buyer to a supplier). 1247 Unlike EU competition law regulation for single behavior, the Act applies to any supplier or intermediary buyer regardless of the involved undertaking's market power and the market impact of the conduct, 1248 taking a very stern stance towards price discrimination by buyers, even stricter than EU competition law, as I discuss below, and disregarding any type of economic justification for the buyer induced purchasing price discrimination. ...
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The topic of this dissertation is the analysis of buyer power and its treatment in EU competition law. The aim of the study and its main research question are connected to identifying, synthesizing, discussing, and evaluating the buyer power regulation in EU competition law. To do so, my research seeks to clarify what buyer power is, how it is legally treated, and whether there is a consistent and coherent buyer power competition policy and legal regulation in EU competition law. Buyer power represents the other side of competition law, focusing on buying conducts and how a buyer can exert its market power to the detriment of competition. Buyer power is an umbrella concept that groups different forms of buying and bargaining over purchasing prices: monopsony and bargaining power (sensu stricto). I define buyer power as the market power possessed by a buyer (or a coordinated group of buyers) that allows said buyer to reduce purchasing prices it pays for an input in a profitable manner below the supplier’s standard selling price. This price reduction can be obtained by either withholding purchases – monopsony – or through bilateral negotiations and pure competitive bargaining that grants the buyer with better contractual conditions. In both cases, the buyer captures a higher share of surplus when negotiating with the supplier that would have been retained by the supplier, absent buyer power. These better terms and conditions can be the result of efficient outcomes, as usually occurs with bargaining power. As it stems from this definition, the economics effects of buyer power are ambiguous. The welfare results caused by it would depend on the type of buyer power exercised and the competitiveness of the upstream and downstream market. In the upstream market buyer power is exerted vis-à-vis suppliers and its effects may be efficient and competitive enhancing because it neutralizes opposed seller market power and reduces the purchasing prices towards the competitive level that may be passed on to end consumers in the form of lower prices, if there is sufficient competition in the related downstream market. However, buyer power may be anticompetitive and inefficient because it may imply a reduction of purchases and, therefore, an allocative loss, or be used with exclusionary effects of rival buyers in the upstream market or even rival retailers in a connected downstream market. Therefore, my thesis assumes that there tends to be both a positive and negative view concerning buyer power.
... Further the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 [17,18] ruling out some rules of Clayton antitrust law. This rule removed the anticompetitive practices and more important the price discrimination. ...
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The prohibition of secondary line price discrimination stated in the Robinson-Patman Act probably still affects more business decisions than any other antitrust law. This article applies a new methodology, developed in the study, of systematic content analysis of all court decisions of Robinson-Patman cases published from 1990 to 2000 (inclusive), traced using the lexis.com database, in order to expand our knowledge regarding such discrimination. I present two empirical claims concerning the act. First, I analyze the preliminary procedures conducted in secondary line private complaints, showing that the procedures themselves can harm competition among suppliers, encourage collusion, and increase monopoly prices. Second, I fill in the factual background to show how the act harms consumers and competition, and, by contrast, how the use of secondary line discrimination can encourage competition. The results help to understand the reasons why suppliers employ such discrimination and its affect on business behavior and competition. They also help to explain the motivations of those discriminated purchasers to file a complaint for such discrimination. The results show empirically why the Robinson-Patman Act should be repealed in its entirety and why it would not be sufficient to dismiss private complaints filed to courts, or to interpret it in keeping with broader antitrust policies. © The Author (2012). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent-policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection as well as empirical evidence on the effects of patent rights. Then, the second part considers the international aspects of IPR protection. In summary, this survey draws the following conclusions from the literature. Firstly, different patent-policy instruments have different effects on R&D and growth. Secondly, there is empirical evidence supporting a positive relationship between IPR protection and innovation, but the evidence is stronger for developed countries than for developing countries. Thirdly, the optimal level of IPR protection should tradeoff the social benefits of enhanced innovation against the social costs of multiple distortions and income inequality. Finally, in an open economy, achieving the globally optimal level of protection requires an international coordination (rather than the harmonization) of IPR protection.
Rolls Royce Motor Cars, Inc., 148 F.3d
  • George Haug Co
George Haug Co. v. Rolls Royce Motor Cars, Inc., 148 F.3d 136, 138 (2d Cir. 1998).
Copyright 2000 American Bar Association. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved
Antitrust Law Journal No. 1 (2000). Copyright 2000 American Bar Association. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.
But it could just as easily mean that the drafters wanted to create seller's liability under Section 2(a) and buyer's liability under Section 2(f) under the same set of circumstancesnamely
  • See Rowe
See Rowe, supra note 23, at 197 & n.99, where Rowe inserts on his own the bracketed words "[on the buyer]" when speaking about the conduct penalized under this language. But it could just as easily mean that the drafters wanted to create seller's liability under Section 2(a) and buyer's liability under Section 2(f) under the same set of circumstancesnamely, when the buyer "knowingly" received or induced such a discrimination. Of course, even if it were true that the word "knowingly" was inserted into Section 2(a) erroneously, Congress finally voted on and the President signed a statute that contained the "knowingly" language.