When Loyalty Programs Become Antitrust Problems: DOJ’s Bayer Seed Investigation

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that Bayer CropScience LLC has removed two sets of potentially anticompetitive provisions from its “Premier Performance Program”—a loyalty program for independent seed companies that sell Bayer’s corn and soybean seed. The announcement came not as the result of a consent decree or court order, but as a voluntary commitment Bayer made during the course of a still-ongoing DOJ investigation.

This is an example of a company taking a hard look at the antitrust risks of its sales initiatives and deciding that the benefit was outweighed by those risks.

Ideally, companies take a hard look at their antitrust risks before they face an investigation. So let’s talk about what those antitrust risks were for Bayer.