By: Steven Salop (ProMarket)
The consumer welfare standard, the guiding principle for Antitrust practice and enforcement for much of recent history, may be coming to an end. Ideas for replacing the existing “consumer” label with a more inclusive or general term, such as “trading partner” welfare, include considering standards such as competitive process protection, effective competition, protecting competition, inclusive growth, anti-monopoly, and freedom from domination.
As for author Steven Salop, his own choice is the “Reasonable Competitive Conduct” (“RCC”) standard, which is a hyprid sharing some of the basic concerns and features of other standards mentioned above, including a recognition of the importance of trading partner welfare, while making an effort to maintain the language and spirit of the Sherman, Clayton, and FTC Acts.
In this short article, the author focuses the standard more narrowly, to describe what might be referred to as “vertical coercion”, and addressing two separate, and sometimes conflicting, concerns…
