Manufacturers may set a fixed price for their products and forbid retailers from offering discounts, the Supreme Court said today, overturning a nearly century-old rule of antitrust law that prohibited retail price fixing.
The 5-4 ruling may be felt by shoppers, including those who buy on the Internet. It permits manufacturers to adopt and enforce what lawyers called “resale price maintenance agreements” that forbid discounting.
The decision, coming on the last day of the court’s term, was the 15th this year that benefits business and corporations by shielding them from lawsuits and legal claims.
Surprise, surprise.
it seems u are free to do anything over there
i mean this is just stupid
I’d say they got it right. If the government can force shops to raise their prices, or even not sell various items, like say TVs that won’t do HD, then surely manufacturers can restrict sales of their own items?
Then again, from experience I naturally assume that the posters on this board get a court case or legal analysis wrong. The most recent example I can think of is the brouhaha over Dick Cheney and classified info, supposedly claiming he’s not part of the executive branch. I’d say he got that one right.
#2 are you retarded?
“resale price maintenance agreements” are price fixing and this will be very costly to everyone and put en enormous burden on the courts for years to come. It will surely hurt internet retailers more than most. Its a step backwards.
Next, I would suggest you visit hookedonphonics.com , then read the constitution. Article 2 section 1 of the constituion says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term”. Notice how it says Vice-President? That means the VP is part of the executive branch, any suggestion otherwise tells us your an ignorant fuck.
So to extrapolate, when you sell your house can you stipulate that it can only be resold for a fixed price that you set? Coool.
Aric, you’re going to burst an artery.
#3 I generally agree with you. But be careful with your final personal attack. You wrote “your an ingnorant f**k” but at the same time showed your own ignorance of correct grammer. It’s a common mistake, but still a mistake. YOUR is possesive. YOU’RE is a contraction of YOU ARE. An example: Your general critique of #2 in my opinion shows that you’re correctly interpreting the U.S. Constition showing that the vice president is part of the executive branch.
I wonder how this will effect Walmart and other like minded stores?
#5 – If you’re going to correct grammar and spelling on here, you’re setting yourself up for a full-time job. I have never in my life seen such poor grammar and spelling by the posters on this site. I’m sure some of it is due to typing quickly and not proof-reading. I wish the posters would reread what they have typed before posting it. Some of it is almost unintelligible. And FireFox has a spell checker. It underlines misspelled words in red. If you right click on the underlined words you’ll most likely find the correct spelling.
Oh, and I forgot to say that this decision by the Supreme Court sucks!
Wow, 7 right-wing stories in a row (if you count Darth Vader). Is there a political left any more?
RBG
This is abysmal. It might well mark our final devolution from a capitalistic economy to a monopolistic/mercantile/corporatist (pick your label) one. Aric’s point is good, though his language uncalled for, in pointing out the example of a former homeowner, dictating what the resale price of the house has to be on resale. And if you get stuck with a house too expensive for anyone to buy, then you loose, I guess. But, of course that is absurd. However, the very same sitaution is going to play out in thousands of retailers, mostly small shops, across America, stuck with product they can’t move at prices people can’t afford. Combine that with the big box store’s ability to negotiate these fixed prices at a lower point due to their volume sales, and you have the end of any store that isn’t corporate and over 10,000 square feet in size. Essentially, the end to free trade in the United States, and that puts aside entirely the obvious negative effect all this monopolism is going to have on the consumer. The fact that the Supremes approved this is final proof (as if any more was needed) that robes do not endow a person with wisdom, or foresight.
8. I think so as well. Somehow, I hope we haven’t heard the last from creative free-enterprisers… especially those based in other countries.
That said, let me try the unthinkable. Let me try to justify the court’s decision based upon what is right rather than on the basis of the law, since I know nothing of the law in this case.
I make a widget. I think I should be able to enter into a contract with you to sell my widget stipulating a certain widget price. You, of course, are free to decline entering into that contract and not sell my widget at all.
RBG
#9
Conservative news are always more profitable than liberal news.
Unfortunately, nothing new here, just putting into law what was already being widely practiced.
Case in point.. consumer electronics. Go to the best buy website and pic out your favorite samsung LCD HD Tv. Go the samsung site, and try to find that part #, better yet, go to an online retailer and try to compare. Cant? Thats because the retailers such as Wal Mart, Best Buy et all. have entered into agreements with the manufacturers to only sell a specific part # at their stores, thereby limiting price shopping and downward price pressure due to internet or competitor sales.
Now, go check the specs between the two listed products with different part #’s, they are suspiciously the same no?
BTW.. hasn’t apple been doing this for years?
Well, I just posted yesterday the link to President Eisenhower saying Nixon was not part of the executive branch. If it mattered, I would repost it again.
Read that constituional provision again. Does it say that the VP is part of the Executive Branch? NO, it does not==it only sets the term of his office.
Unless you study constitutional law (I haven’t), you are just assuming your conclusion. Cheney is a dick, but he didn’t make this position up without a basis.
Anybody have a “legal” reason why Cheney is part of the Exec Branch other than thats what you always thought?
BTW, yes, the case does show the real power of the President–to nominate pro-business activist judges who are willing to overturn precedent to make war on the middle/working class.
So does this mean RIAA can force Wal Mart amd Costco to sell CD’s at $15.99?
Let’s look at this objectively.
Who wins? The Manufacturing Industry.
Large retail outlets who can afford to get into exclusive pricing schemes with the manufacturers
Who Losses? Small Retail outlets who regularly discount items through sales to induce customers to enter their store.
The end customer, who no longer can wait for a sale, or price shop for the cheapest price, below MSRP.
The exclusively internet retailer who works with minimal overhead, therefore keeps costs low.
Chalk another one up for big business and chalk up yet another loss to the consumer.
Fixed price marketing only benefits companies that produce a unique product. If companies A, B and C make essentially the same product, and A decides to fix their price, they will kill themselves. B and C can underprice them with no worries.
Unique products like what Apple, or Nintendo (usually) makes can survive and thrive on the strategy because their competition is sufficiently different. None of that hurts the consumer because the price is still driven by market demand.
It’s still illegal to price fix between corporations (A,B and C can’t fix a price between them), and that’s what really matters.
17—horizontal price fixing may be worse than vertical retail price fixing but that doesn’t make the latter insignificant.
Actually, this will BENEFIT the small retailer. My company makes a product that is sold by various dealers. All the local small stores are dropping our product because they can’t compete with the big online retailers who slice the margins to the absolute minimum in order to get all the sales. Under the existing rules, there was absolutely nothing we could do to help the small retailers. Choice in the market was reduced, our product was available in fewer places, and our product was devalued in the market.
We most certainly do compete with other products, and ours definitely isn’t the cheapest. People have readily available cheaper alternatives, yet a large fraction of the market buys our product, presumably because it is better.
Competition isn’t just about the cheapest price, it’s about the best value.
Give an example where vertical price fixing, where there are competing products, is significant and sustainable.
#20 was for bobbo.
@#20
Apple’s iPod. Since its introduction, there has been vertical price fixing on the product.
Here’s a somewhat interesting article on Apple’s tactics to maintain the price despite competition from third-party DAPs.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061222/122642.shtml
@22, so how does that hurt the consumer? They haven’t even brought it to market yet and they’ve lowered the price by $100… which I think they planned. 😉
@19, have you considered that your sales might drop?. If your retail price gets fixed higher the value/price balance might work against you when your competition’s price becomes better value in the chains.
Will the small stores be able to take up the slack?
@22, I was thinking about the iPhone. There are too many “i”s out there.
@22, let me try that again. How has iPod’s price fixing hurt anyone? If they were gouging, RCA Lira sales would go up. They were genius to price it at what consumers were willing to pay, and make a half decent profit, unlike the bare minimum they make on their computers which are also price fixed.
21—Very difficult to do since it has been ILLEGAL for a hundred years.
But in theory the article itself gives the example of the intermediary distributers getting harmed.
More to the point perhaps is that “everything is wonderful” analysis always avoids the simple fact that any rule benefits some and harms others.
Significant and sustainable admits to this fact.
Doesn’t Bose do this already? I’ve never seen their stuff below cost.
Congress can pass legislation to correct this insane ruling. They have that power. Whether they will, and whether W would sign it, are two entirely different subjects…
Tom
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. The supposedly wasn’t referring to whether VP is part of the executive branch, but whether Dick Cheney claimed that. The executive order that he was violating, didn’t say everyone in the executive branch has to do X. It said all agencies, and defined what agency meant. The VP’s office can make a good case that they are not such an agency.
It may have been illegal (not sure about here in Canada) but it was unnecessary. Bose, as mentioned above is another example. Intermediary distributors being harmed might ultimately help the consumer. Too many middle men aren’t healthy for the bottom line.