# Robinson-Patman Act **Signed:** June 19, 1936, by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] · **Sponsors:** Sen. Joseph T. Robinson and Rep. Wright Patman The Robinson-Patman Act rewrote Section 2 of the [[Clayton Antitrust Act]]. It bars a seller from charging different purchasers different prices for commodities "of like grade and quality" where the effect may be to lessen competition. It also reaches the disguised versions of a discount: phony brokerage payments, and promotional allowances not offered to all buyers on proportionally equal terms. Sellers have two main defenses: - **cost justification:** the discount reflects real savings in serving that buyer - **meeting competition:** the price was cut in good faith to match a rival's offer ## What it was for The law's target was the Depression-era **chain store**, above all A&P, which used its buying power to extract discounts that independent grocers and druggists could not get. Wright Patman, a Texas populist, saw that as a threat to the independent merchant class and to the towns built around it. With the [[Miller-Tydings Act]] a year later, Robinson-Patman is the clearest statutory rejection of the idea that lower consumer prices settle the question. **It protects a market structure, explicitly at the possible expense of efficiency.** That is why the [[Consumer Welfare Standard]] era treated it as an embarrassment. The Chicago School read it as anti-consumer, federal enforcement withered, and the FTC's last case for a generation was a consent order against McCormick & Co. in **March 2000**. Private plaintiffs kept using it. The government did not. ## The partial revival (2024–2026) - **FTC v. Southern Glazer's (Dec. 12, 2024).** The [[Lina Khan]] FTC voted 3–2 to sue the country's largest wine and spirits distributor in C.D. Cal. The theory was that it gave big chains discounts and rebates that independent stores could not get. Judge Fred Slaughter **denied the motion to dismiss on April 17, 2025**, so the case survived the change of administration. - **FTC v. PepsiCo (Jan. 17, 2025).** Filed days before the inauguration, alleging Pepsi favored one large retail customer with promotional payments and allowances. The [[Andrew Ferguson]] FTC **dismissed it on May 22, 2025**. Ferguson's written statement called the case "purely political" and "nakedly political." AP's report described it as a "dubious partisan stunt." - **Settlement (June 2026).** Southern Glazer's and the FTC reached an **agreement in principle on June 18, 2026**, and the court stayed the case. The parties asked for more time again on Aug. 28. No final order has been found as of Sept 30. The scorecard: two filings, one dismissal, one settlement, and no new Ferguson-era cases. The New Right's populist antitrust rhetoric has not extended to the one statute written specifically to protect small sellers against big buyers. One law firm's headline put it plainly: "Robinson-Patman returns to its slumber." ## See also - [[Clayton Antitrust Act]] · [[Miller-Tydings Act]] · [[Consumer Welfare Standard]] · [[New Brandeis Movement]] - [[FTC]] · [[Lina Khan]] · [[Andrew Ferguson]] - [[US Antitrust and Monopoly Timeline]] · [[Antitrust]]