{
  "id": "RS22700",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RS22700",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
  "versions": [
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      "id": 363560,
      "date": "2008-12-10",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T02:59:23.163020",
      "title": "Resale Price Maintenance No Longer a Per Se Antitrust Offense: Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, Inc.",
      "summary": "The plaintiff in Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, Inc. successfully asked the Supreme Court to soften the longstanding treatment of resale price maintenance (RPM, vertical imposition of direct, minimum price restraints) as a per se (automatic, and not capable of being justified) antitrust offense. RPM had been so analyzed since the Court decided in 1911 that a manufacturer of patent medicines could not lawfully agree with retailers of its products on the prices at which those products would be sold (Dr. Miles Medical Company v. John D. Park & Sons Company, 220 U.S. 373). Such agreements, the Court had said in Dr. Miles, constituted both unlawful restraints of trade under the common law, and violations of the Sherman Act\u2019s prohibition against \u201ccontract[s] or combination[s] ... in restraint of trade\u201d (15 U.S.C. \u00a7 1). Leegin\u2019s practice of entering into contracts with its retailers of the Brighton line of leather products to set the prices at which the dealers would resell those products was challenged by a discounting retailer whose replacement shipments were terminated; the trial court found a per se violation of section 1 (2004 WL 5254322), and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision (171 Fed.Appx. 464 (2006)). Leegin argued in the Supreme Court that because RPM may sometimes be pro-consumer (might, for example, allow the retailers to profitably provide extra services desired by some consumers), the practice should not be conclusively presumed unreasonable \u201cwithout elaborate inquiry as to \u2018its precise harm or business justification for its use.\u2019\u201d Agreeing with Leegin, the Court overruled Dr. Miles, stating that allowing RPM to be analyzed as a Rule of Reason violation (pursuant to which the procompetitive effects of a judicially determined antitrust violation are weighed against the anticompetitive results of the challenged activity) should be allowed: \u201cNotwithstanding the risks of unlawful conduct, it cannot be stated with any degree of confidence that [RPM] always tend[s] to restrict competition ....\u201d   551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2705, 2709 (2007), quoting, Business Electronics Corp. v. Sharp Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. 717, 723 (1988).\nThis report will not be updated.",
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      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc815155/",
      "id": "RS22700_2007Jul30",
      "date": "2007-07-30",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "Resale Price Maintenance No Longer a Per Se Antitrust Offense: Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, Inc.",
      "summary": null,
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
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      "topics": []
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  ],
  "topics": [
    "Economic Policy"
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}