4 ms·

IANAL, but I think this would qualify as a resale price maintenance agreement[1], which is legal at a federal level and in most (but not all!) states. I guess i

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• hogFeast 5y ago
  The US used to have "fair trade" laws with these kind of agreements. These were used to protect independent grocers from chain department stores...they were the Amazon of the 1940/50s. Plus ca change. But the legality of this kind of thing depends on the circumstances. From what I have read, it seems unlikely to be illegal (it is perfectly normal for a manufacturer to supply a product and attempt to stop a buyer selling into a particular channel) but I am not sure it is a great idea to say you are doing this specifically to increase prices. To give you an example I came across recently, when Sony came to the US they dealt with US wholesalers. Some wholesalers would sell to product to retailers who wanted to aggressively discount product. So Sony eventually stopped selling to wholesalers, and sold directly to retailers who wouldn't discount their product. It is a fine line but the manufacturer always has the choice of not selling to a certain buyer anyway (and tbf, as dollar stores have shown, some retailers will get around the manufacturer's rules anyway). So I don't think it is particularly unreasonable for a manufacturer to tell customers to stop putting product into a certain channel, and it probably isn't anticompetitive (because it doesn't limit the ability of competitors to sell on Amazon).