VOLVO TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA, INC. v. REEDER- SIMCO GMC, INC.

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VOLVO TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA, INC. v. REEDER-
SIMCO GMC, INC.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eighth circuit
No. 04–905. Argued October 31, 2005—Decided January 10, 2006
Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. (Reeder), an authorized dealer of heavy-duty
trucks manufactured by Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. (Volvo), gen
erally sold those trucks through an industry-wide competitive bidding
process, whereby the retail customer describes its specific product re
quirements and invites bids from dealers it selects based on such factors
as an existing relationship, geography, and reputation. Once a Volvo
dealer receives the customer’s specifications, it requests from Volvo a
discount or “concession” off the wholesale price. Volvo decides on a
case-by-case basis whether to offer a concession. The dealer then uses
its Volvo discount in preparing its bid; it purchases trucks from Volvo
only if and when the retail customer accepts its bid. Reeder was one
of many regional Volvo dealers. Although nothing prohibits a Volvo
dealer from bidding outside its territory, Reeder rarely bid against an
other Volvo dealer. In the atypical case in which a retail customer so
licited a bid from more than one Volvo dealer, Volvo’s stated policy was
to provide the same price concession to each dealer. In 1997, after
Volvo announced plans to enlarge the size of its dealers’ markets and to
reduce by almost half the number of its dealers, Reeder learned that
Volvo had given another dealer a price concession greater than the dis
counts Reeder typically received.
Reeder, suspecting it was one of the dealers Volvo sought to elimi
nate, filed this suit under, inter alia, § 2 of the Clayton Act, as amended
by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13, alleging that its sales and
profits declined because Volvo offered other dealers more favorable
price concessions. At trial, Reeder presented evidence of two instances
when it bid against another Volvo dealer for a particular sale. In the
first, although Volvo initially offered Reeder a lower concession, Volvo
ultimately matched the concession offered to the competing dealer.
Neither dealer won the bid. In the second, Volvo initially offered the
two dealers the same concession, but increased the other dealer’s dis
count after it, rather than Reeder, was selected. Reeder dominantly
relied on comparisons between concessions it received on four occasions
when it bid successfully against non-Volvo dealers (and thus purchased
Volvo trucks), with more favorable concessions other successful Volvo

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dealers received in bidding processes in which Reeder did not partici
pate. Reeder also compared concessions Volvo offered it on several oc
casions when it bid unsuccessfully against non-Volvo dealers (and there
fore did not purchase Volvo trucks), with more favorable concessions
accorded other Volvo dealers who gained contracts on which Reeder did
not bid. Reeder did not look for instances in which it received a larger
concession than another Volvo dealer, but acknowledged it was “quite
possible” that such instances occurred. Nor did Reeder offer any sta
tistical analysis revealing whether it was disfavored on average as com
pared to other dealers. The jury found a reasonable possibility that
discriminatory pricing may have harmed competition between Reeder
and other Volvo dealers, that Volvo’s discriminatory pricing injured
Reeder, and that Reeder’s damages from Volvo’s Robinson-Patman vio
lation exceeded $1.3 million. The District Court awarded treble dam
ages on the Robinson-Patman Act claim, and entered judgment.
Affirming, the Eighth Circuit, among other things, noted the thresh
old requirement that Reeder show it was a “purchaser” within the Act’s
meaning; rejected Volvo’s contention that competitive bidding situations
do not give rise to Robinson-Patman claims; held that the four instances
in which Reeder purchased trucks following successful bids rendered it
a purchaser under the Act; determined that a jury could reasonably
decide Reeder was in actual competition with favored dealers at the
time price differentials were imposed; and held that the jury could prop
erly find Reeder had proved competitive injury based on evidence that
(1) Volvo intended to reduce the number of its dealers, (2) Reeder
lost one contract for which it competed with another Volvo dealer,
(3) Reeder would have earned more profits, had it received the conces
sions given other dealers, and (4) Reeder’s sales declined over time.
Held: A manufacturer may not be held liable for secondary-line price dis
crimination under the Robinson-Patman Act in the absence of a showing
that the manufacturer discriminated between dealers competing to re
sell its product to the same retail customer. The Act does not reach
the case Reeder presents. It centrally addresses price discrimination
in cases involving competition between different purchasers for resale
of the purchased product. Competition of that character ordinarily is
not involved when a product subject to special order is sold through a
customer-specific competitive bidding process. Pp. 175–182.
1. Section 2 was enacted to curb financially powerful corporations’
use of localized price-cutting tactics that gravely impaired other sellers’
competitive position. FTC v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 363 U. S. 536, 543,
and n. 6. Augmenting § 2, the Robinson-Patman Act targeted the per
ceived harm to competition occasioned by the advent of large chain

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stores able to obtain lower prices for goods than smaller buyers could
demand. Robinson-Patman does not ban all price differences charged
to different purchasers of similar commodities, but proscribes only
“price discrimination [that] threatens to injure competition,” Brooke
Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U. S. 209, 220.
Of the three categories of competitive injury that may give rise to a
Robinson-Patman claim, secondary-line cases, like this one, involve price
discrimination that injures competition among the discriminating sell
er’s customers (here, Volvo’s dealerships). Reeder has satisfied the
Act’s first two requirements for establishing secondary-line injury:
(1) The relevant Volvo truck sales were made in interstate commerce,
and (2) the trucks were of “like grade and quality,” 15 U. S. C. § 13(a).
Because Reeder has not identified any differentially priced transaction
in which it was both a “purchaser” under the Act and “in actual competi
tion” with a favored purchaser for the same customer, see, e. g., FTC v.
Sun Oil Co., 371 U. S. 505, 518–519, Volvo and amicus United States
maintain that Reeder cannot satisfy the Act’s third and fourth require
ments—that (3) Volvo “discriminate[d] in price between” Reeder and
another purchaser of Volvo trucks, and (4) “the effect of such discrimina
tion may be . . . to injure, destroy, or prevent competition” to the advan
tage of a favored purchaser, i. e., one who “receive[d] the benefit of such
discrimination,” 15 U. S. C. § 13(a). Absent actual competition with a
favored Volvo dealer, Reeder cannot establish the competitive injury
the Act requires. Pp. 175–177.
2. The injury to competition targeted by the Robinson-Patman Act is
not established by the selective comparisons Reeder presented at trial:
(1) comparisons of concessions Reeder received for four successful bids
against non-Volvo dealers, with larger concessions other successful
Volvo dealers received for different sales on which Reeder did not bid
(purchase-to-purchase comparisons); (2) comparisons of concessions of
fered to Reeder in connection with several unsuccessful bids against
non-Volvo dealers, with greater concessions accorded other Volvo deal
ers who competed successfully for different sales on which Reeder did
not bid (offer-to-purchase comparisons); and (3) comparisons of two occa
sions on which Reeder bid against another Volvo dealer (head-to-head
comparisons). Pp. 177–180.
(a) Because the purchase-to-purchase and offer-to-purchase com
parisons fail to show that Volvo sold at a lower price to Reeder’s “com
petitors,” those comparisons do not support an inference of competitive
injury. See Falls City Industries, Inc. v. Vanco Beverage, Inc., 460
U. S. 428, 435. Both types of comparisons fall short because in none
of the discrete instances on which Reeder relied did it compete with
beneficiaries of the alleged discrimination for the same customer. Nor

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did Reeder even attempt to show that the compared dealers were con
sistently favored over it. Reeder simply paired occasions on which it
competed with non-Volvo dealers for a sale to Customer A with in
stances in which other Volvo dealers competed with non-Volvo dealers
for a sale to Customer B. The compared incidents were tied to no sys
tematic study and were separated in time by as many as seven months.
This Court declines to permit an inference of competitive injury from
evidence of such a mix-and-match, manipulable quality. No similar risk
of manipulation occurs in cases kin to the chainstore paradigm. Here,
there is no discrete “favored” dealer comparable to a chainstore or a
large independent department store—at least, Reeder’s evidence is in
sufficient to support an inference that such a dealer exists. For all that
appears, Reeder, on occasion, might have gotten a better deal vis-a` -vis
one or more of the dealers in its comparisons. While Reeder may have
competed with other Volvo dealers for the opportunity to bid on poten
tial sales in a broad geographic area, competition at that initial stage is
based on a variety of factors, including the existence vel non of a rela
tionship between the potential bidder and the customer, geography, and
reputation. Once the customer has chosen the particular dealers from
which it will solicit bids, the relevant market becomes limited to the
needs and demands of the particular end user, with only a handful of
dealers competing for the sale. Volvo dealers’ bidding for sales in the
same geographic area does not import that they in fact competed for
the same customer-tailored sales. Pp. 178–179.
(b) Nor is a Robinson-Patman violation established by Reeder’s ev
idence of two instances in which it competed head to head with another
Volvo dealer. When multiple dealers bid for the business of the same
customer, only one dealer will win the business and thereafter purchase
the supplier’s product to fulfill its contractual commitment. Even as
suming the Act applies to head-to-head transactions, Reeder did not
establish that it was disfavored vis-a` -vis other Volvo dealers in the rare
instances in which they competed for the same sale—let alone that the
alleged discrimination was substantial. Reeder’s evidence showed loss
of only one sale to another Volvo dealer, a sale of 12 trucks that would
have generated $30,000 in gross profits for Reeder. Per its policy, Volvo
initially offered Reeder and the other dealer the same concession, but
ultimately granted a larger concession to the other dealer after it had
won the bid. In the only other instance of head-to-head competition,
Volvo increased Reeder’s initial discount to match the discount offered
the other competing Volvo dealer, but neither dealer won the bid. If
price discrimination between two purchasers existed at all, it was not
of such magnitude as to affect substantially competition between Reeder
and the “favored” Volvo dealer. Pp. 179–180.

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3. The Robinson-Patman Act signals no large departure from antitrust
law’s primary concern, interbrand competition. Even if the Act’s text
could be construed as Reeder urges and the Eighth Circuit held, this
Court would resist interpretation geared more to the protection of ex
isting competitors than to the stimulation of competition. There is no
evidence here that any favored purchaser possesses market power, the
allegedly favored purchasers are dealers with little resemblance to large
independent department stores or chain operations, and the supplier’s
selective price discounting fosters competition among suppliers of differ
ent brands. By declining to extend Robinson-Patman’s governance to
such cases, the Court continues to construe the Act consistently with
antitrust law’s broader policies. Pp. 180–181.
374 F. 3d 701, reversed and remanded.
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts,
C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer, JJ., joined.
Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, post,
p. 182.
Roy T. Englert, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Donald J. Russell, Max Huffman,
and David L. Williams.
Deputy Solicitor General Hungar argued the cause for
the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With
him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant
Attorney General Pate, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Delrahim, Jonathan L. Marcus, Catherine G. O’Sullivan,
and David Seidman.
Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the briefs were Richard D. Bernstein, Stephen B.
Kinnaird, and Joe D. Byars, Jr.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American
Petroleum Institute by Carolyn F. Corwin, Harry M. Ng, and Douglas W.
Morris; for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association by Clark
R. Silcox; for the Truck Manufacturers Association et al. by G. Michael
Halfenger; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo
and David Price.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the National
Automobile Dealers Association by Paul R. Norman and Catherine

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Opinion of the Court
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns specially ordered products—heavy
duty trucks supplied by Volvo Trucks North America, Inc.
(Volvo), and sold by franchised dealers through a competitive
bidding process. In this process, the retail customer states
its specifications and invites bids, generally from dealers
franchised by different manufacturers. Only when a Volvo
dealer’s bid proves successful does the dealer arrange to pur
chase the trucks, which Volvo then builds to meet the cus
tomer’s specifications.
Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. (Reeder), a Volvo dealer located
in Fort Smith, Arkansas, commenced suit against Volvo al
leging that Reeder’s sales and profits declined because Volvo
offered other dealers more favorable price concessions than
those offered to Reeder. Reeder sought redress for its al
leged losses under § 2 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, as
amended by the Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act,
49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13 (Robinson-Patman Act or Act),
and the Arkansas Franchise Practices Act, Ark. Code Ann.
§ 4–72–201 et seq. (2001). Reeder prevailed at trial and on
appeal on both claims.
We granted review on the federal claim to resolve the
question whether a manufacturer offering its dealers differ
ent wholesale prices may be held liable for price discrimina
tion proscribed by Robinson-Patman, absent a showing that
the manufacturer discriminated between dealers contempo
raneously competing to resell to the same retail customer.
While state law designed to protect franchisees may provide,
and in this case has provided, a remedy for the dealer ex
posed to conduct of the kind Reeder alleged, the Robinson-
Patman Act, we hold, does not reach the case Reeder pre
sents. The Act centrally addresses price discrimination in
cases involving competition between different purchasers for
Cetrangolo; and for the North American Equipment Dealers Association
et al. by Wayne A. Mack.

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resale of the purchased product. Competition of that char
acter ordinarily is not involved when a product subject to
special order is sold through a customer-specific competitive
bidding process.
I
Volvo manufactures heavy-duty trucks. Reeder sells new
and used trucks, including heavy-duty trucks. 374 F. 3d 701,
704 (CA8 2004). Reeder became an authorized dealer of
Volvo trucks in 1995, pursuant to a five-year franchise agree
ment that provided for automatic one-year extensions if
Reeder met sales objectives set by Volvo. Ibid. Reeder
generally sold Volvo’s trucks through a competitive bidding
process. Ibid. In this process, the retail customer de
scribes its specific product requirements and invites bids
from several dealers it selects. The customer’s “decision to
request a bid from a particular dealer or to allow a particular
dealer to bid is controlled by such factors as an existing rela
tionship, geography, reputation, and cold calling or other
marketing strategies initiated by individual dealers.” Id.,
at 719 (Hansen, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part).
Once a Volvo dealer receives the customer’s specifications,
it turns to Volvo and requests a discount or “concession” off
the wholesale price (set at 80% of the published retail price).
Id., at 704. It is common practice in the industry for manu
facturers to offer customer-specific discounts to their dealers.
Ibid.; App. 334, 337. Volvo decides on a case-by-case basis
whether to offer a discount and, if so, what the discount rate
will be, taking account of such factors as industry-wide de
mand and whether the retail customer has, historically, pur
chased a different brand of trucks. App. 348–349, 333–334.1
The dealer then uses the discount offered by Volvo in prepar
1 To shield its ability to compete with other manufacturers, Volvo keeps
confidential its precise method for calculating concessions offered to deal
ers. 374 F. 3d 701, 704–705 (CA8 2004); App. 337–338.

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ing its bid; it purchases trucks from Volvo only if and when
the retail customer accepts its bid. Ibid.
Reeder was one of many Volvo dealers, each assigned by
Volvo to a geographic territory. Reeder’s territory encom
passed ten counties in Arkansas and two in Oklahoma. 374
F. 3d, at 709. Although nothing prohibits a Volvo dealer
from bidding outside its territory, ibid., Reeder rarely bid
against another Volvo dealer, see id., at 705; 5 App. in
No. 02–2462 (CA8), pp. 1621–1622 (hereinafter C. A. App.).
In the atypical event that the same retail customer solicited
a bid from more than one Volvo dealer, Volvo’s stated policy
was to provide the same price concession to each dealer com
peting head to head for the same sale. 4 id., at 1161–1162;
5 id., at 1619, 1621.
In 1997, Volvo announced a program it called “Volvo Vi
sion,” in which the company addressed problems it faced in
the market for heavy trucks, among them, the company’s
assessment that it had too many dealers. Volvo projected
enlarging the size of its dealers’ markets and reducing the
number of dealers from 146 to 75. 374 F. 3d, at 705. Coinci
dentally, Reeder learned that Volvo had given another dealer
a price concession greater than the concessions Reeder typi
cally received, and “Reeder came to suspect it was one of the
dealers Volvo sought to eliminate.” Ibid. Reeder filed suit
against Volvo in February 2000, alleging losses attributable
to Volvo’s violation of the Arkansas Franchise Practices Act
and the Robinson-Patman Act.
At trial, Reeder’s vice-president, William E. Heck, ac
knowledged that Volvo’s policy was to offer equal conces
sions to Volvo dealers bidding against one another for a par
ticular contract, but he contended that the policy “was not
executed.” 4 C. A. App. 1162. Reeder presented evidence
concerning two instances over the five-year course of its au
thorized dealership when Reeder bid against other Volvo
dealers for a particular sale. 374 F. 3d, at 705, 708–709.
One of the two instances involved Reeder’s bid on a sale to

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Tommy Davidson Trucking. 4 C. A. App. 1267–1268. Volvo
initially offered Reeder a concession of 17%, which Volvo,
unprompted, increased to 18.1% and then, one week later, to
18.9%, to match the concession Volvo had offered to another
of its dealers. 5 id., at 1268–1272. Neither dealer won the
bid. Id., at 1272. The other instance involved Hiland
Dairy, which solicited bids from both Reeder and Southwest
Missouri Truck Center. Id., at 1626–1627. Per its written
policy, Volvo offered the two dealers the same concession,
and Hiland selected Southwest Missouri, a dealer from which
Hiland had previously purchased trucks. Ibid. After se
lecting Southwest Missouri, Hiland insisted on the price
Southwest Missouri had bid prior to a general increase in
Volvo’s prices; Volvo obliged by increasing the size of the
discount. Id., at 1627. See also id., at 1483–1488; 374 F. 3d,
at 720 (Hansen, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Reeder dominantly relied on comparisons between con
cessions Volvo offered when Reeder bid against non-Volvo
dealers, with concessions accorded to other Volvo dealers
similarly bidding against non-Volvo dealers for other sales.
Reeder’s evidence compared concessions Reeder received on
four occasions when it bid successfully against non-Volvo
dealers (and thus purchased Volvo trucks), with more favor
able concessions other successful Volvo dealers received in
connection with bidding processes in which Reeder did not
participate. Id., at 705–706. Reeder also compared conces
sions offered by Volvo on several occasions when Reeder bid
unsuccessfully against non-Volvo dealers (and therefore did
not purchase Volvo trucks), with more favorable concessions
received by other Volvo dealers who gained contracts on
which Reeder did not bid. Id., at 706–707.
Reeder’s vice-president, Heck, testified that Reeder did
not look for instances in which it received a larger concession
than another Volvo dealer, although he acknowledged it was
“quite possible” that such instances occurred. 5 C. A. App.
1462. Nor did Reeder endeavor to determine by any sta

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tistical analysis whether Reeder was disfavored on average
as compared to another dealer or set of dealers. Id., at
1462–1464.
The jury found that there was a reasonable possibility that
discriminatory pricing may have harmed competition be
tween Reeder and other Volvo truck dealers, and that Vol
vo’s discriminatory pricing injured Reeder. App. 480–486.
It further found that Reeder ’s damages from Volvo’s
Robinson-Patman Act violation exceeded $1.3 million. Id.,
at 486.2 The District Court summarily denied Volvo’s mo
tion for judgment as a matter of law and the company’s alter
native motion for new trial or remittitur, awarded treble
damages on the Robinson-Patman Act claim, and entered
judgment.
A divided Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit af
firmed. The appeals court noted that, “as a threshold mat
ter[,] Reeder had to show [that] it was a ‘purchaser’ within
the meaning of the [Act],” 374 F. 3d, at 708, i. e., that “there
were actual sales at two different prices[,] . . . a sale to
[Reeder] and a sale to another Volvo dealer,” id., at 707–708.
Rejecting Volvo’s contention that competitive bidding situa
tions do not give rise to claims under the Robinson-Patman
Act, id., at 708–709, the Court of Appeals observed that
Reeder was “more than an unsuccessful bidder,” id., at 709.
The four instances in which Reeder “actually purchased
Volvo trucks following successful bids on contracts,” the
court concluded, sufficed to render Reeder a purchaser
within the meaning of the Act. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals next determined that a jury could
reasonably decide that Reeder was “in actual competition”
with favored dealers. Ibid. “[A]s of the time the price
differential was imposed,” the court reasoned, “the favored
2 The jury also awarded Reeder damages of $513,750 on Reeder’s state
law claim under the Arkansas Franchise Practices Act. No question is
before us respecting that claim, which trained on Volvo’s alleged design to
eliminate Reeder as a Volvo dealer. See supra, at 171.

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and disfavored purchasers competed at the same functional
level . . . and within the same geographic market.” Ibid.
(quoting Best Brands Beverage, Inc. v. Falstaff Brewing
Corp., 842 F. 2d 578, 585 (CA2 1987)). The court further
held that the jury could properly find from the evidence that
Reeder had proved competitive injury from price discrimina
tion. Specifically, the court pointed to evidence showing
that (1) Volvo intended to reduce the number of its dealers;
(2) Reeder lost the Hiland Dairy contract, for which it com
peted head to head with another Volvo dealer; (3) Reeder
would have earned more profits, had it received the conces
sions other dealers received; and (4) Reeder’s sales had de
clined over a period of time. 374 F. 3d, at 711–712. The
court also affirmed the award of treble damages to Reeder.
Id., at 712–714.
Judge Hansen dissented as to the Robinson-Patman Act
claim. “Traditional [Robinson-Patman Act] cases,” he ob
served, “involve sellers and purchasers that carry inventory
or deal in fungible goods.” Id., at 718. The majority, Judge
Hansen commented, “attempt[ed] to fit a square peg into a
round hole,” ibid., when it extended the Act’s reach to the
marketplace for heavy-duty trucks, where “special-order
products are sold to individual, pre-identified customers only
after competitive bidding,” ibid. There may be competition
among dealers for the opportunity to bid on potential sales,
he noted, but “[o]nce bidding begins, . . . the relevant market
becomes limited to the needs and demands of a particular
end user, with only a handful of dealers competing for the
ultimate sale.” Id., at 719. Violation of the Act, in Judge
Hansen’s view, could not be predicated on the instances
Reeder identified in which it was a purchaser, for “there was
no actual competition between” Reeder and another Volvo
dealer at the time of Reeder’s purchases. Ibid. “Without
proof of actual competition” for the same customer when the
requisite purchases were made, he concluded, “Reeder can

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not demonstrate a reasonable possibility of competitive in
jury.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 544 U. S. 903 (2005), to resolve this
question: May a manufacturer be held liable for secondary
line price discrimination under the Robinson-Patman Act in
the absence of a showing that the manufacturer discrimi
nated between dealers competing to resell its product to the
same retail customer? Satisfied that the Court of Appeals
erred in answering that question in the affirmative, we re
verse the Eighth Circuit’s judgment.
II
Section 2, “when originally enacted as part of the Clayton
Act in 1914, was born of a desire by Congress to curb the use
by financially powerful corporations of localized price-cutting
tactics which had gravely impaired the competitive position
of other sellers.” FTC v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 363 U. S.
536, 543, and n. 6 (1960) (citing H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong.,
2d Sess., 8 (1914); S. Rep. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2d Sess.,
2–4 (1914)). Augmenting that provision in 1936 with the
Robinson-Patman Act, Congress sought to target the per
ceived harm to competition occasioned by powerful buyers,
rather than sellers; specifically, Congress responded to the
advent of large chainstores, enterprises with the clout to ob
tain lower prices for goods than smaller buyers could de
mand. See 14 H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 2302, p. 11
(2d ed. 2006) (hereinafter Hovenkamp); P. Areeda & L.
Kaplow, Antitrust Analysis ¶ 602, pp. 908–909 (5th ed. 1997)
(hereinafter Areeda). The Act provides, in relevant part:
“It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in com
merce . . . to discriminate in price between different pur
chasers of commodities of like grade and quality, . . .
where the effect of such discrimination may be substan
tially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly
in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent
competition with any person who either grants or know

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ingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with
customers of either of them . . . .” 15 U. S. C. § 13(a).
Pursuant to § 4 of the Clayton Act, a private plaintiff may
recover threefold for actual injury sustained as a result of
a violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. See 15 U. S. C.
§ 15(a); J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 451
U. S. 557, 562 (1981).
Mindful of the purposes of the Act and of the antitrust
laws generally, we have explained that Robinson-Patman
does not “ban all price differences charged to different pur
chasers of commodities of like grade and quality,” Brooke
Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U. S.
209, 220 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted); rather,
the Act proscribes “price discrimination only to the extent
that it threatens to injure competition,” ibid. Our decisions
describe three categories of competitive injury that may
give rise to a Robinson-Patman Act claim: primary line, sec
ondary line, and tertiary line. Primary-line cases entail con
duct—most conspicuously, predatory pricing—that injures
competition at the level of the discriminating seller and its
direct competitors. See, e. g., id., at 220–222; see also Ho
venkamp ¶ 2301a, pp. 4–6. Secondary-line cases, of which
this is one, involve price discrimination that injures competi
tion among the discriminating seller’s customers (here, Vol
vo’s dealerships); cases in this category typically refer to “fa
vored” and “disfavored” purchasers. See ibid.; Texaco Inc.
v. Hasbrouck, 496 U. S. 543, 558, n. 15 (1990). Tertiary-line
cases involve injury to competition at the level of the pur
chaser’s customers. See Areeda ¶ 601e, p. 907.
To establish the secondary-line injury of which it com
plains, Reeder had to show that (1) the relevant Volvo truck
sales were made in interstate commerce; (2) the trucks were
of “like grade and quality”; (3) Volvo “discriminate[d] in price
between” Reeder and another purchaser of Volvo trucks; and
(4) “the effect of such discrimination may be . . . to injure,
destroy, or prevent competition” to the advantage of a fa

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vored purchaser, i. e., one who “receive[d] the benefit of such
discrimination.” 15 U. S. C. § 13(a). It is undisputed that
Reeder has satisfied the first and second requirements.
Volvo and the United States, as amicus curiae, maintain that
Reeder cannot satisfy the third and fourth requirements, be
cause Reeder has not identified any differentially priced
transaction in which it was both a “purchaser” under the Act
and “in actual competition” with a favored purchaser for the
same customer.
A hallmark of the requisite competitive injury, our deci
sions indicate, is the diversion of sales or profits from a disfa
vored purchaser to a favored purchaser. FTC v. Sun Oil
Co., 371 U. S. 505, 518–519 (1963) (evidence showed patronage
shifted from disfavored dealers to favored dealers); Falls
City Industries, Inc. v. Vanco Beverage, Inc., 460 U. S. 428,
437–438, and n. 8 (1983) (complaint “supported by direct evi
dence of diverted sales”). We have also recognized that a
permissible inference of competitive injury may arise from
evidence that a favored competitor received a significant
price reduction over a substantial period of time. See FTC
v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 49–51 (1948); Falls City
Industries, 460 U. S., at 435. Absent actual competition
with a favored Volvo dealer, however, Reeder cannot estab
lish the competitive injury required under the Act.
III
The evidence Reeder offered at trial falls into three cate
gories: (1) comparisons of concessions Reeder received for
four successful bids against non-Volvo dealers, with larger
concessions other successful Volvo dealers received for dif
ferent sales on which Reeder did not bid (purchase
to-purchase comparisons); (2) comparisons of concessions
offered to Reeder in connection with several unsuccessful
bids against non-Volvo dealers, with greater concessions
accorded other Volvo dealers who competed successfully
for different sales on which Reeder did not bid (offer-to

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purchase comparisons); and (3) evidence of two occasions on
which Reeder bid against another Volvo dealer (head-to-head
comparisons). The Court of Appeals concluded that Reeder
demonstrated competitive injury under the Act because
Reeder competed with favored purchasers “at the same func
tional level . . . and within the same geographic market.”
374 F. 3d, at 709 (quoting Best Brands, 842 F. 2d, at 585). As
we see it, however, selective comparisons of the kind Reeder
presented do not show the injury to competition targeted by
the Robinson-Patman Act.
A
Both the purchase-to-purchase and the offer-to-purchase
comparisons fall short, for in none of the discrete instances
on which Reeder relied did Reeder compete with beneficiar
ies of the alleged discrimination for the same customer.
Nor did Reeder even attempt to show that the compared
dealers were consistently favored vis-a` -vis Reeder. Reeder
simply paired occasions on which it competed with non-Volvo
dealers for a sale to Customer A with instances in which
other Volvo dealers competed with non-Volvo dealers for a
sale to Customer B. The compared incidents were tied to
no systematic study and were separated in time by as many
as seven months. See 374 F. 3d, at 706, 710.
We decline to permit an inference of competitive injury
from evidence of such a mix-and-match, manipulable quality.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 34–35, 55. No similar risk of manipula
tion occurs in cases kin to the chainstore paradigm. Here,
there is no discrete “favored” dealer comparable to a chain
store or a large independent department store—at least,
Reeder’s evidence is insufficient to support an inference of
such a dealer or set of dealers. For all we know, Reeder, on
occasion, might have gotten a better deal vis-a` -vis one or
more of the dealers in its comparisons. See supra, at 172.
Reeder may have competed with other Volvo dealers for
the opportunity to bid on potential sales in a broad geo
graphic area. At that initial stage, however, competition is

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not affected by differential pricing; a dealer in the competi
tive bidding process here at issue approaches Volvo for a
price concession only after it has been selected by a retail
customer to submit a bid. Competition for an opportunity
to bid, we earlier observed, is based on a variety of factors,
including the existence vel non of a relationship between the
potential bidder and the customer, geography, and reputa
tion. See supra, at 170.3 We reiterate in this regard an
observation made by Judge Hansen, dissenting from the
Eighth Circuit’s Robinson-Patman holding: Once a retail cus
tomer has chosen the particular dealers from which it will
solicit bids, “the relevant market becomes limited to the
needs and demands of a particular end user, with only a
handful of dealers competing for the ultimate sale.” 374
F. 3d, at 719. That Volvo dealers may bid for sales in the
same geographic area does not import that they in fact com
peted for the same customer-tailored sales. In sum, the
purchase-to-purchase and offer-to-purchase comparisons fail
to show that Volvo sold at a lower price to Reeder’s “compet
itors,” hence those comparisons do not support an inference
of competitive injury. See Falls City Industries, 460 U. S.,
at 435 (inference of competitive injury under Morton Salt
arises from “proof of a substantial price discrimination be
tween competing purchasers over time” (emphasis added)).
B
Reeder did offer evidence of two instances in which it com
peted head to head with another Volvo dealer. See supra,
at 171–172. When multiple dealers bid for the business of
the same customer, only one dealer will win the business
and thereafter purchase the supplier’s product to fulfill its
3 A dealer’s reputation for securing favorable concessions, we recognize,
may influence the customer’s bidding invitations. Cf. post, at 183, n. 2.
We do not pursue that point here, however, because Reeder did not
present—or even look for—evidence that Volvo consistently disfavored
Reeder while it consistently favored certain other dealers. See supra,
at 172–173.

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contractual commitment. Because Robinson-Patman “pro
hibits only discrimination ‘between different purchasers,’ ”
Brief for Petitioner 26 (quoting 15 U. S. C. § 13(a); emphasis
added), Volvo and the United States argue, the Act does
not reach markets characterized by competitive bidding and
special-order sales, as opposed to sales from inventory. See
Brief for Petitioner 27; Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 9, 17–20. We need not decide that question today.
Assuming the Act applies to the head-to-head transactions,
Reeder did not establish that it was disfavored vis-a` -vis
other Volvo dealers in the rare instances in which they com
peted for the same sale—let alone that the alleged discrimi
nation was substantial. See 1 ABA Section of Antitrust
Law, Antitrust Law Developments 478–479 (5th ed. 2002)
(“No inference of injury to competition is permitted when
the discrimination is not substantial.” (collecting cases)).
Reeder’s evidence showed loss of only one sale to another
Volvo dealer, a sale of 12 trucks that would have generated
$30,000 in gross profits for Reeder. 374 F. 3d, at 705. Per
its policy, Volvo initially offered Reeder and the other dealer
the same concession. Volvo ultimately granted a larger con
cession to the other dealer, but only after it had won the
bid. In the only other instance of head-to-head competition
Reeder identified, Volvo increased Reeder’s initial 17% dis
count to 18.9%, to match the discount offered to the other
competing Volvo dealer; neither dealer won the bid. See
supra, at 172. In short, if price discrimination between two
purchasers existed at all, it was not of such magnitude as
to affect substantially competition between Reeder and the
“favored” Volvo dealer.
IV
Interbrand competition, our opinions affirm, is the “pri
mary concern of antitrust law.” Continental T. V., Inc. v.
GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 51–52, n. 19 (1977). The
Robinson-Patman Act signals no large departure from that

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main concern. Even if the Act’s text could be construed in
the manner urged by Reeder and embraced by the Court of
Appeals, we would resist interpretation geared more to the
protection of existing competitors than to the stimulation of
competition.4 In the case before us, there is no evidence
that any favored purchaser possesses market power, the al
legedly favored purchasers are dealers with little resem
blance to large independent department stores or chain oper
ations, and the supplier’s selective price discounting fosters
competition among suppliers of different brands. See id., at
51–52 (observing that the market impact of a vertical prac
tice, such as a change in a supplier’s distribution system, may
be a “simultaneous reduction of intrabrand competition and
stimulation of interbrand competition”). By declining to ex
tend Robinson-Patman’s governance to such cases, we con
tinue to construe the Act “consistently with broader policies
of the antitrust laws.” Brooke Group, 509 U. S., at 220
(quoting Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. FTC, 440 U. S.
69, 80, n. 13 (1979)); see Automatic Canteen Co. of America
v. FTC, 346 U. S. 61, 63 (1953) (cautioning against Robinson-
Patman constructions that “extend beyond the prohibitions
of the Act and, in doing so, help give rise to a price uniform
ity and rigidity in open conflict with the purposes of other
antitrust legislation”).5
4 The dissent assails Volvo’s decision to reduce the number of its dealers.
Post, at 183. But Robinson-Patman does not bar a manufacturer from
restructuring its distribution networks to improve the efficiency of its op
erations. If Volvo did not honor its obligations to Reeder as its fran
chisee, “[a]ny remedy . . . lies in state laws addressing unfair competition
and the rights of franchisees, not in the Robinson-Patman Act.” Brief
for United States as Amicus Curiae 28.
5 See also Hovenkamp ¶ 2333c, p. 109 (commenting that the Eighth Cir
cuit’s expansive interpretation “views the [Robinson-Patman Act] as a
guarantee of equal profit margins on sales actually made,” and thereby
exposes manufacturers to treble damages unless they “charge uniform
prices to their dealers”).

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Stevens, J., dissenting
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Ap
peals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is re
manded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Thomas joins,
dissenting.
Franchised dealers who sell Volvo trucks, like those who
sell automobiles, farm equipment, washing machines, and a
variety of other expensive items, routinely engage in negoti
ations with prospective purchasers. Sometimes the pros
pect is simultaneously negotiating with two Volvo dealers,
sometimes with a Volvo dealer and a dealer representing an
other manufacturer, and still other times a satisfied customer
who is generally familiar with the options available in a com
petitive market may negotiate with only one dealer at a time.
Until today, the Robinson-Patman Act’s prohibition of price
discrimination1 would have protected the dealer’s ability to
negotiate in all those situations. Today, however, by adopt
ing a novel, transaction-specific concept of competition, the
Court eliminates that statutory protection in all but those
rare situations in which a prospective purchaser is negotiat
ing with two Volvo dealers at the same time.
I
Setting aside for the moment the fact that the case in
volves goods specially ordered for particular customers
1 Section 2 of the Clayton Act, as amended by § 1 of the Robinson-
Patman Act, provides in relevant part:
“It shall be unlawful for any person . . . to discriminate in price between
different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality . . . where the
effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or
tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy,
or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly
receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of
them.” 38 Stat. 730, as amended, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13(a).

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rather than goods stocked in inventory, the case is a rather
ordinary Robinson-Patman suit. Respondent Reeder al
leged a violation of the Act; the parties submitted a good deal
of conflicting evidence to the jury; the trial judge properly
instructed the jurors on the elements of price discrimination,
competitive injury, and damages; and the jury returned a
verdict resolving all issues in Reeder’s favor. The Court
of Appeals found no error in either the instructions or the
sufficiency of the evidence. 374 F. 3d 701 (CA8 2004).
Two issues of fact bear particular mention.
First, Volvo does not challenge the jury’s finding of price
discrimination. Reeder’s theory of the case was that Volvo
sought to cut back its number of dealers and deemed Reeder
expendable. To avoid possible violations of franchise agree
ments and state laws, Volvo chose to accomplish this goal by
offering Reeder worse prices than other regional dealers.
Reeder introduced substantial evidence of this theory. It
showed that Volvo had an explicit business strategy, known
as the “Volvo Vision,” of “fewer dealers, larger markets.”
App. 34. It showed that Volvo could afford to lose sales as
it squeezed dealers out, since the boom years of the late
1990’s left Volvo with about as many orders as it could fill.
Id., at 256–257. And it showed that Volvo frequently gave
worse prices to it than to other regional dealers. On at least
four occasions, Volvo sold trucks to Reeder at significantly
higher prices than to other dealers buying similar trucks
around the same time.2 To give one example, in the spring
of 1998 Volvo sold 20 trucks to Reeder at a 9% concession,
but sold similar trucks to a Texas dealer at a 12.3% conces
sion. Id., at 132–134. This left Reeder paying $2,606 more
per truck. Id., at 134. Although the Court chides Reeder
2 Additionally, on more than 12 other occasions, Volvo offered worse
deals to Reeder than it gave to dealers who made comparable purchases.
Arguably due to Volvo’s stingy concessions, Reeder failed to close with its
customers in these instances and thus never ended up buying the trucks
at issue from Volvo.

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for failing to perform statistical analyses, see ante, at 172–
173, 178, the jury clearly had a sufficient basis for finding
price discrimination. It could infer that Volvo’s pricing poli
cies were comparable to a secret catalog listing one set of
low prices for its “A” dealers and a higher set for its “B”
dealers like Reeder, with an exception providing for the
same prices where an “A” dealer and a “B” dealer were en
gaged in negotiations with the same customer at the same
time.
Second, the jury found that the favored dealers at issue
in these comparisons were competitive players in the same
geographic market as Reeder. This conclusion is implicit in
the jury’s finding of competitive injury, since the jury in
struction on that element required Reeder to prove
“a substantial difference in price in sales by defendant
to plaintiff and other competing Volvo dealers over a
significant period of time. This requires plaintiff to
show that it and the other Volvo dealer(s) were retail
dealers within the same geographic market and that the
effect of the price differential was to allow the other
Volvo dealer(s) to draw sales or profits away from plain
tiff.” App. 480, Instruction No. 18.
Volvo does not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to
support the jury finding that Reeder and the favored dealers
operated in the same geographic market.3 Volvo’s restraint
is wise, as Reeder offered evidence that truck buyers are
unsurprisingly mobile, that it delivered trucks to purchasers
throughout the region, and that customers would sometimes
solicit bids from more than one regional Volvo dealer.
3 Similarly, and despite its selective discussion of the extensive eviden
tiary record, ante, at 170–173, the Court does not question the sufficiency
of the evidence supporting the jury’s finding that Volvo engaged in price
discrimination against Reeder relative to other regional Volvo dealers for
a significant period of time.

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II
For decades, juries have routinely inferred the requisite
injury to competition under the Robinson-Patman Act from
the fact that a manufacturer sells goods to one retailer at a
higher price than to its competitors. This rule dates back
to the following discussion of competitive injury in Justice
Black’s opinion for the Court in FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334
U. S. 37 (1948):
“It is argued that the findings fail to show that respond
ent’s discriminatory discounts had in fact caused injury
to competition. There are specific findings that such
injuries had resulted from respondent’s discounts, al
though the statute does not require the Commission to
find that injury has actually resulted. The statute re
quires no more than that the effect of the prohibited
price discriminations ‘may be substantially to lessen
competition . . . or to injure, destroy, or prevent competi
tion.’ After a careful consideration of this provision of
the Robinson-Patman Act, we have said that ‘the statute
does not require that the discriminations must in fact
have harmed competition, but only that there is a rea
sonable possibility that they “may” have such an effect.’
Corn Products Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 324 U. S.
726, 742. Here the Commission found what would ap
pear to be obvious, that the competitive opportunities of
certain merchants were injured when they had to pay
respondent substantially more for their goods than their
competitors had to pay. The findings are adequate.”
Id., at 45–47 (footnote omitted).
We have treated as competitors those who sell “in a single,
interstate retail market.” Falls City Industries, Inc. v.
Vanco Beverage, Inc., 460 U. S. 428, 436 (1983); cf. Tampa
Elec. Co. v. Nashville Coal Co., 365 U. S. 320, 327 (1961).
Under this approach—uncontroversial until today—Reeder

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would readily prevail. There is ample evidence that Volvo
charged Reeder higher prices than it charged to competing
dealers in the same market over a period of many months.
That those higher prices impaired Reeder’s ability to com
pete with those dealers is just as obvious as the injury to
competition described by the Court in Morton Salt.
Volvo nonetheless argues that no competitive injury could
have occurred because it never discriminated against Reeder
when Reeder and another Volvo dealer were seeking conces
sions with regard to the same ultimate customer. In Volvo’s
view, each transaction was a separate market, one defined
by the customer and those dealers whom it had asked for
bids. For each specific customer who has solicited bids,
Reeder’s only “competitors” were the other dealers making
bids. Accordingly, if none of these other dealers were Volvo
dealers, then Reeder suffered no competitive harm (relative
to other Volvo dealers) when Volvo gave it a discriminatorily
high price.
Unlike the Court, I cannot accept Volvo’s vision. Nothing
in the statute or in our precedent suggests that “competi
tion” is evaluated by a transaction-specific inquiry, and such
an approach makes little sense. It requires us to ignore the
fact that competition among truck dealers is a continuing
war waged over time rather than a series of wholly discrete
events. Each time Reeder managed to resell trucks it had
purchased at discriminatorily high prices, it was forced
either to accept lower profit margins than were available to
favored Volvo dealers or to pass on the higher costs to its
customers (who then might well go to a different dealer the
next time). And we have long indicated that lost profits rel
ative to a competitor are a proper basis for permitting the
Morton Salt inference. See, e. g., Falls City Industries, 460
U. S., at 435 (noting that to overcome the Morton Salt infer
ence, a defendant needs “evidence breaking the causal con
nection between a price differential and lost sales or profits”
(emphasis added)). By ignoring these commonsense points,

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the Court gives short shrift to the Robinson-Patman Act’s
prophylactic intent. See 15 U. S. C. § 13(a) (barring price
discrimination where “the effect of such discrimination may
be substantially to lessen competition” (emphasis added));
see also, e. g., Morton Salt, 334 U. S., at 46.
The Court appears to hold that, absent head-to-head bid
ding with a favored dealer, a dealer in a competitive bidding
market can suffer no competitive injury.4 It is unclear
whether that holding is limited to franchised dealers who do
not maintain inventories, or excludes virtually all franchisees
from the effective protection of the Act. In either event, it
is not faithful to the statutory text.
III
As the Court recognizes, the Robinson-Patman Act was
primarily intended to protect small retailers from the vig
orous competition afforded by chainstores and other large
volume purchasers. Whether that statutory mission repre
sented sound economic policy is not merely the subject of
serious debate, but may well merit Judge Bork’s character
ization as “wholly mistaken economic theory.” 5 I do not
suggest that disagreement with the policy of the Act has
played a conscious role in my colleagues’ unprecedented deci
sion today. I cannot avoid, however, identifying the irony
in a decision refusing to adhere to the text of the Act in a
case in which the jury credited evidence that discriminatory
4 Indeed, if Volvo’s argument about the meaning of “purchaser,” see
ante, at 179–180, ultimately meets with this Court’s approval, then the
Robinson-Patman Act will simply not apply in the special-order context.
Any time a special-order dealer fails to complete a transaction because the
high price drives away its ultimate customer, there will be no Robinson-
Patman violation because the dealer will not meet the “purchaser” re
quirement, and any time the dealer completes the transaction but at a
discriminatorily high price, there will be no violation because the dealer
has no “competition” (as the majority sees it) for that specific transaction
at the moment of purchase.
5 R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 382 (1978).

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prices were employed as means of escaping contractual com
mitments and eliminating specifically targeted firms from a
competitive market. The exceptional quality of this case
provides strong reason to enforce the Act’s prohibition
against discrimination even if Judge Bork’s evaluation (with
which I happen to agree) is completely accurate.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.