Defenses

• Pages: 8-14

Robinson-Patman Primer

8

III. DEFENSES

There are several specic defenses to a claim of

price discrimi nation under the Act.

A. Meeting Competition

Meeting competition provides a complete afr-

mative defense to what would otherwise be unlawful

price discrimi nation when a seller acts in good faith

to meet an equally low price of a competitor.

1. Good Fait h. Good faith is t he key to the

availability of the defense: a seller may sell at a dis-

criminatory pr ice to one customer if it has reason

to believe in good faith that it is meeting an equally

low offer by one of its competitors to that customer.

Good faith is evaluated under the standard of the

prudent business person responding fairly to what he

or she reasonably believes is a situation of competi-

tive necessity. The seller may offer a lower price to

match, but not knowingly beat, a competitor’s price,

regardless of whether the buyer is a new or existing

customer. The seller may lower its prices on an area-

wide basis if this is a genuine, reasonable response to

prevailing competitive prices in the area.

2. Verifying C ompetitive Offers. To satisfy

the good faith requirement, a seller should verify

the competitive offer through means other than con-

tacting its competitor. Written verication from the

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