The Robinson-Patman Act as a Fair Competition Measure

Abstract

The Robinson-Patman Act is the single most unpopular antitrust law among practitioners and scholars in the field. It has been the target of withering criticism for many years. In 1966, Robert Bork disparaged it as "the Typhoid Mary of antitrust." Others, such as the bipartisan Antitrust Modernization Commission in 2007, offered criticisms with more tempered rhetoric but agreed with Bork that the law, by restricting price discrimination and the offering of other special concessions by manufacturers and wholesalers, raised consumer prices and had no sensible rationale. A near consensus has developed among antitrust lawyers and economists that Congress should scale back or repeal the Robinson-Patman Act entirely and that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission should continue their multi-decade, tacit policy of non-enforcement of the law.

Keywords: antitrust, fair competition, Robinson-Patman, price discrimination, buyer power, monopsony power