Taking on Power Buyers: Expedient, High-Impact Enforcement of Federal and California Price Discrimination Laws
July 2025 — Washington, DC — The American Economic Liberties Project, where Simonsen Sussman Los Angeles partner Catherine Simonsen served as Senior Legal Fellow, published a practice guide co-authored by Simonsen and New York partner Shaoul Sussman entitled, “Taking on Power Buyers: Expedient, High-Impact Enforcement of Federal and California Price Discrimination Laws.” The practice guide focuses on some of the most straightforward legal strategies available to hold dominant retailers accountable for anticompetitive price discrimination tactics.
Acknowledging that antitrust litigation can be time-consuming and expensive, the practice guide outlines potential expedient, high-impact paths for legal action by a disfavored retailer or retailer association against a favored buyer for certain forms of price discrimination under federal and California law. In other words, the practice guide is not intended as a comprehensive guide to enforcement under the Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) and California law and focuses instead on more straightforward actions against power buyers. This practice guide also explains how private litigants can use California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) to bring an action against a power buyer for a per se violation of the RPA—a cause of action that may not be directly available under the RPA itself.
Examples of actionable conduct include:
Promotional allowances provided to a favored retailer—whether in the form of after-the-fact rebates or upfront discounts to the purchase price—not made available to competing retailers on proportionally equal terms;
Secret price discounts given exclusively to the favored retailer; and
Promotional signs, displays, or ads that benefit the favored retailer but are paid for or subsidized by the supplier and not offered on proportionally equal terms to competing retailers.
Read the full report here.
