The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) first Robinson-Patman Act (“RPA”) suit in decades has survived a motion to dismiss. The Honorable Fred W. Slaughter in the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled on the papers that the FTC’s Complaint against Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits, LLC (“Southern”) “sufficiently alleges” a claim that Southern has engaged in price discrimination that injures competition among its customers, a secondary-line discrimination claim, as detailed below.[1]

As we summarized in a prior advisory (available here), two years ago, during the Biden administration’s tenure, the FTC announced its intention to ramp up enforcement of the RPA, a Great Depression era anti-price discrimination law, after decades of non-enforcement. The RPA forbids a seller of goods from engaging in price discrimination between two or more different purchasers.  The rationale for the RPA was that preventing such price discrimination would enable smaller companies to compete with larger businesses.Read More Federal Judge Allows FTC’s Robinson-Patman Act Suit Against Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits to Continue Beyond Motion to Dismiss Stage