The Fixation With Fixing Resale Prices

Under the Indian Competition Act, Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) is defined under Section 3(4) (e) of the Act as including any agreement to sell goods on the condition that the prices to be charged on the resale by the purchaser shall be the prices stipulated by the seller unless it is clearly stated that prices lower than those prices may be charged.

Also known as vertical price fixing, RPM refers to agreements or practices among enterprises at different levels in a distribution channel, wherein an enterprise decides the resale price at which a product or service must be sold by a distributor. As a vertical intra-brand restraint, RPM governs the resale price of products or services of a particular manufacturer. RPM, in its usual form, is the practice of setting a price floor, below which sales cannot occur, as in the case of minimum resale price maintenance. In its classic formulation, RPM is the act of directly controlling the retail transaction price for the