The Research About The Application Of The Illegality Principle On Minimum Resale Price Maintenance

Antitrust law is considered as the economic constitution, the core valueorientation of it is to maximize the overall economic interests of society. It’s widelybelieved that restricting competition will put negative effect on social benefits so thatit should be prohibited. Maintaining minimum resale price is the typical type ofvertical price restrictions. They reflect the two sides of anti-trust law: obstruction ofcompetition in the market and promotion of economic efficiency.Whether to strictly regulate it or to abide it for its reasonable factors, HarvardSchool and Chicago school of economics hold different point of view. This paperstarts from the resale price maintenance theory discussion, then analyze the anti-trustlegislation of different countries, to adopt the appropriate illegal judge principle onresale price maintenance and how to put into practice. This paper is divided into fourchapters:The first chapter is the basic theory of resale price maintenance. The chapterlaunches from the concept of resale price maintenance, analyzes of the compositionand classification of the behavior. It focuses on the dual attributes of maintain aminimum resale price on the economic impact. A detailed statement of how thisbehavior promotes the economic efficiency and has a negative impact on competitionenvironment is elaborated. It is regarded as a suspect on obstructing competition fromthe point of price limit while been treated as a contributor for social economydevelopment from the point of economists. The second chapter is the theory of per se illegal rule and the rule of reason.Considering the development process and the nature of their characteristics, the authorcompared advantages and disadvantages on judging the illegality of restriction ofcompetition respectively. The chapter focused on whether to identify the illegality ofmaintain minimum resale price by using the per se illegal rule directly, or to apply therule of reason based on its reasonable factors. We pointed out that the choice of theoryof per se illegal rule and the rule of reason on maintaining minimum resale pricebehavior has always been a controversyThe third chapter elaborated anti-trust regulatory principles on resale pricemaintenance behavior of various countries around the world. Firstly, the authoranalyzed the dynamic evolution of the United States on applying the resale pricemaintenance. Then, we introduced the regulation of anti-monopoly legislation onmaintaining a minimum resale price of some other countries, including the EuropeanCommunity, Britain. It followed that the trend of applying the rule of reason on resaleprice maintenance is clear from the world vision.The fourth chapter is how to apply the rule of reason. Although the country’santi-monopoly law judicial practice prefers the reasonableness of resale pricemaintenance, its huge consumption of judicial resources on applying it should beconsidered. How to improve the efficiency of the rule of reason becomes a majorproblem. The author proposes the following points: Taking advantage of the adequatejudicial system, we could finish most cases before entering the final stages of thetradeoff; Make clear that consequence requirement is the essential part whichreasonable principle focus on; We end up with using structured analysis method, sothat those maintaining a minimum resale price behavior without monopoly marketconditions can be free of review.