Manufacturers use resale price maintenance (RPM) for a variety of reasons. In a conventional market setting, when factory price is fixed, profit is maximized by ensuring the lowest possible retail price. The higher retail price ensured by RPM mean a lower quantity sold, since demand is downward sloping. The explanations of RPM remain controversial after many scholars¡¦ investigations. Pro-competitive arguments view RPM as a marketing practice that ensures an efficient distribution system. Anticompetitive arguments contend that manufacturers use RPM to maintain cartel prices and reduce competition among retailers. Understanding the incentives to adopt RPM is critical both for marketing scholars and for antitrust policymakers because RPM, which is employed over the wide variety of products, is the most important vertical restraints, in terms of both the frequency of use and the number of legal cases generated. In Taiwan, the applicability of RPM is limited by Fair Trade Law. Fair Trade Commission considers that RPM is per se illegal as a vertical restraint against competition The explanation for RPM often cited is the special services argument, which indicates the discounter will draw customers from the retailers that provide full services when RPM is not employed. However, in practices, RPM is used in a much wider variety of products than the special services argument would predict. In this research, we examine the RPM property from the risk perspectives and determine how the incentives for using RPM are affected by the changes of economic variables. We find that the imposition of RPM is appropriate in the circumstances where retail price variance is high, sales quantities variance is low and the correlation between two variables is positive. In addition, we find that RPM can be a substitute or complement for advertising, as is found in the existing literature. Our model clearly exhibits the relationship between advertising and RPM, which are both important marketing strategies. We also find that RPM can reduce consumers¡¦ incentive to delay purchases. As the demand price elasticity increases, RPM is more strictly employed by manufactures who want to eliminate purchase delay caused by frequent markdowns. We also perform empirical tests to show that the motivation behind RPM is to reduce the negative externality of frequent markdowns on consumers¡¦ purchase delay.

PROTECTION OF COMPETITION - BLOCK EXEMPTIONS The main purpose of my thesis is to describe and analyze one aspect of a block exemption regulation for vertical agreements, namely resale price maintenance. The thesis is composed of six parts, one of them dealing with block exemptions in general and the rest of them focusing on resale price maintenance. Chapter one introduces the topic of block exemptions and explains the features of block exemptions that are common to all of them. Chapter two presents the definition of resale price maintenance and describes the difference between fixed, minimum, maximum and recommended prices. Chapter three describes economic theories, which have influence on legal treatment of resale price maintenance. The chapter is divided into three subchapters, whereas the first one explicates pro-competitive effects of resale price maintenance, the second one focuses on its anticompetitive effects and the third one summarizes the economic theories of impact of resale price maintenance. Chapter four examines the legal framework of resale price maintenance in European law. Firstly, it describes the treatment of fixed, minimum, recommended and maximum prices. Then it analyzes resale price maintenance as an object restriction and examines possible exemption under Article 101 (1) of...

The United States and the European Union operate in the world’s two most powerful systems of competition law and policy, whose enforcement and judicial institutions employ similar concepts and legal language. Nevertheless, the two systems have reached different results across a number of significant antitrust issues. One such issue is the approach taken towards vertical price fixing and, in particular, the practice referred to as resale price maintenance. Resale price maintenance generally includes the predetermination of a fixed or minimum retail price in a vertical distribution agreement.   In European competition law, resale price maintenance is considered a hardcore restriction of competition and is thereby presumed to infringe Article 101(1) TFEU by its object. The presumption is strong and has proved difficult to rebut in practice. In the United States, the US Supreme Court changed its approach towards resale price maintenance in its 2007 landmark decision Leegin. The majority overturned its nearly century old precedent regarding resale price maintenance, concluding that the practice is no longer to be treated as a per se violation of antitrust law but should instead be subject to a rule of reason analysis. The judgment was the last in a series of different cases, all demonstrating a complete reversal in the approach towards both price and non-price vertical restraints. The change of approach in the United States was largely influenced by developments in economic thinking addressing the potential pro-competitive effects of resale price maintenance. Even though the European Union has modernised and renewed its competition rules to be more in line with economic theory, some uncertainties and difficulties seem to remain regarding the scope of the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements and the possible efficiencies resulting from vertical price fixing. These issues have constituted the main focus for this thesis, which aims to examine vertical price fixing and the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements in Article 101(1) TFEU.   The policy view towards resale price maintenance in the European Union has been subject to great discussion and debate, and it has been argued that the approach towards the restriction is too strict. The legal framework for vertical agreements is now up for review and it is of interest to examine the appropriateness of the prohibition on resale price maintenance, especially in the light of two recent judgments. The thesis shows that there might be sufficient arguments for a change of approach towards resale price maintenance also in the European Union.

Objetivou-se colocar em evidência as políticas realizadas na função repressiva do Sistema Brasileiro de Defesa da Concorrência (SBDC) sobre a fixação de preços de revenda (FPR) a partir da Lei n. 8.884/1994 (revogada pela Lei n. 12.529/2011). Do mesmo modo que a conduta poderia acarretar consequências perversas ao ambiente concorrencial, a falta de padrões claros para caracterizar a conduta como ilícita também pode ensejar efeitos deletérios ao ambiente institucional protegido pelo SBDC. O problema central da pesquisa está nos arranjos institucionais para promover a maximização da segurança jurídica no contexto da FPR no SBDC. Partiu-se da hipótese de que essas alternativas institucionais podem ser encontradas no próprio arcabouço normativo no SBDC, sem prejuízo de outras soluções estruturais. A partir dessa premissa, foi aplicado o método de análise de instituições para resolver um problema de arcabouço institucional aplicado. Inicialmente, o método abordou uma análise como um fim descritivo, objetivando identificar os elementos/particularidades do ambiente recortado para delimitar os contornos do problema da pesquisa. Para tanto, foram analisadas as decisões paradigmáticas do Cade sobre o tema. Ato contínuo, passou-se à função analítica aplicada do método, para formular um instrumental propositivo a respeito das possíveis falhas do arcabouço anteriormente estudado. Para tanto, a linha de raciocínio subjacente à tarefa foram os métodos dedutivo e hipotético-dedutivo, tomando como fontes a bibliografia especializada, além das estruturas balizadoras do ordenamento jurídico nacional. Concluiu-se que a estabilidade institucional é um dos fatores a ser considerado na promoção da defesa da concorrência, devendo ser garantida na intersecção entre as funções repressiva e educativa do SBDC, isto é, por meio de medidas educativas (medidas ex ante de conscientização) antes de medidas sancionadoras (ações punitivas ex post). Cabe ao Cade considerar os postulados da razoabilidade e proporcionalidade não apenas em suas atividades-fim, mas também nos reflexos de seus atos administrativos sobre o ambiente institucional, o que inclui o dever de proteção da segurança jurídica. Portanto, qualquer inovação institucional in pejus ao administrado aplicada pelo Cade, inclusive no caso de standards interpretativos, deverá ser considerada na perspectiva dos pilares da lei de processo administrativo como ponderação necessária, vedadas medidas contraditórias àquelas que se têm praticado no mesmo ambiente institucional. / The research encompasses the policies enforced by the Brazilian System of Competition Defence (SBDC) with regard to Resale Price Maintenance (RPM). While the conduct may produce a negative impact over competition - reducing the welfare of consumers -, the lack of predictability from the rulings enforced by SBDC on the subject might, likewise, produce deleterious outcomes to the institutional environment. The focus of this research rests on the premise of promoting a maximization of legal security in the context of RPM within SBDC. The initial hypothesis is that the institutional alternatives may be found within the very normative scope of SBDC, without prejudice of other structural solutions. Based on those premises we applied the Analysis of Institutions method in order to solve the issue within an institutional scope. Such method encompassed the analysis as a descriptive means, with the objective of identifying the elements/particularities of the given environment in order to define the contours from the object of the research. Subsequently, we moved on to the analytical method in order to instrumentally investigate possible flaws within the scope of what was previously studied. Thus, the subsequent lines of thought were both deductive and hypothetico-deductive. As a conclusion, the institutional stability is one of the factors to be considered in the promotion of competition defense, and it should be warranted within an intersection of repressive and educative functions from the SBDC, that is, through educative measures (ex ante) before repressive actions (punitive actions, ex post). It was concluded that institutional stability is one of the factors to be considered in promoting competition and should be guaranteed at the intersection between the repressive and educational functions of the SBDC, that is, through educational measures (ex ante measures) before punitive measures ex post. It will always be up to Cade to consider the claims with regard to reasonability and proportionality, not only with regard to the end activity but also with regard to the outcomes over the institutional environment - which also encompasses the duty of legal protection as well. Moreover, the notion of restrictions of competition \"by the object\" - as well as any institutional innovation contrary to the ones previously administered - should be considered from the perspective of the pillars of the Administrative Process Law.

This thesis deals with the selected vertical restraints on competition that occur in the sector of e-commerce, namely resale price maintenance, dual pricing and most-favoured-nation clauses. The thesis raises the research question what stance the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and particularly national competition authorities and courts of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden take to the above-mentioned practices. The decisions of the authorities are considered in terms of their degree of strictness towards the vertical restraints in question. From a systematic point of view, the thesis is divided into eight chapters. Its subject, basic questions, aims and methods used are outlined in the introductory chapter. The second chapter, which deals with the concept of e-commerce, mainly provides the definition of the scope of the sector under consideration from a material point of view. The third chapter analyses the results of the European Commission's inquiry into the e-commerce sector, especially its conclusions on the functioning of the sector, its features and trends in this sector, particularly with regard to their...