Resale Price Maintenance : Has CCI Upped The Ante?

Price fixing arrangements strike at the very heart of antitrust violations since they go against the accepted norm of price being determined by market forces. Such arrangements raise concerns in both horizontal and vertical markets. Under the scheme of the Competition Act, 2002 (Act), while horizontal pricing agreements (between competitors) are presumed to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition (AAEC), there is no such presumption in the case of vertical agreements (between entities operating at different levels of the value chain), where the "rule of reason" approach is applied.

Interestingly, the treatment of vertical agreements and in particular resale price maintenance (RPM)¹, has been long debated in many jurisdictions. Initially, antitrust authorities in mature jurisdictions were in agreement that RPM, in principle, was a per se violation and as such, not subject to any justification. However, acknowledging the need for relaxation, the US Supreme