Quote:
Originally Posted by LakeLoon
Under the antitrust laws that deal with "combination, contract, or conspiracy"--i.e., agreement--you cannot violate the law unless you establish that an agreement exists between 2+ entities. It is a threshold question. No agreement, no Sherman Act Section 1 violation (or its analogs under state law).
Where you are talking about the relationship between a principal and agent, arguably there are not two entities, economically speaking. Just like you cannot have an antitrust conspiracy between the president and the vice-president of the same company. Just like a parent corporation is not "price-fixing" when it agrees on pricing with a wholly-owned subsidiary.
Leegin does not address this question of "what constitutes an agreement?" One could easily have raised the argument before Leegin, and Leegin did not make the argument any more or less valid.
However, if you assume that the "agency" argument is rejected, and the principal and agent are deemed to be two separate actors capable of entering into an anticompetitive agreement, then Leegin becomes relevant. I think this is your point, and if so I agree.
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Is the argument that the various publishing houses are making, then, that Amazon (and Apple or whoever) is their agent, not a retailer?
I personally believe MAP / RPM laws, allowing corporations to restrict how much retailers sell their products for, are anti-competitive and an anti-trust problem. Companies should be allowed to price products they are selling as they want (for good or ill) in order to compete.
Problem is, the Supreme Court right now seems to be awfully nice to corporations, so it's legal. That doesn't keep me from believing it to be anti- free market at its heart. I sympathize with states that have attempted to ban the practice.