The topic of vertical restraints has generated a good deal of interest, discussion, and controversy in recent years. Moreover, the recent publication of the US Justice Department's 'Vertical Restraints Guidelines' ensures that the subject will continue to be discussed, both in the US and in...

The suggested retail price (SRP) is widely applied in various industries and product categories in practice, and it can serve as a reference price, which impacts a consumer's utility through reference effect. In this paper, we study a firm's decisions of whether and how the firm should set an...

"The question of how to properly enforce against RPM has been a contentious debate for decades on both sides of the Atlantic. The catalyst is the acceptance that RPM can generate both anti-competitive effects and pro-competitive efficiencies that need to be properly balanced to ensure against...

Is resale price maintenance per se illegal in China, or subject to a rule of reason analysis? Who bears the burden to prove anti-competitive effects, or their absence, in government investigations? Are the approach and standard for resale price maintenance different for government investigations...

Platforms acting as sales channels for producers often charge users for access, via a subscription fee or a markup on hardware. We compare two common forms of vertical pricing agreement that platforms use with sellers: per-­unit and proportional fees. In particular, we analyze the critical role...

The CCI's decision in Hyundai Motors that the imposition of a discount control provision in their dealership agreements constituted unlawful Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) is the first and only case till date where the CCI found a violation of law with respect to RPM. This order was widely...

This paper analyzes downstream merchant price coherence when upstream platforms are vertically differentiated. When merchants are unable to charge different prices to consumers who purchase their product using different platforms, fee competition among platforms becomes more intense. We show...

The subject of vertical restraints is well-trod territory in antitrust. Most of the cases, and economic literature, have focused, however, on the physical world of manufacturers and distributors. This paper considers what's new and different about the digital world that matters for the antitrust...