The Law of Open Pricing in the United States and Britain— A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

THE object of the statutory body of antitrust law in the United States is to protect as such. The British Restrictive Trade Practices Act, on the other hand, nowhere mentions the word competition in describing what agreements come within the Act'; the British Act seeks rather to effect the registration of agreements and arrangements entered into by competitors and then to determine on a discretionary and ad hoc basis whether such agreements or arrangements are against the public interest. Despite this rather large difference in the British and American approaches to combinations in restraint of trade, there is at least one area in which their courts are faced with an identical problem: the root problem of determining whether there in fact is an arrangement among or combination of competitors in existence.2 This problem has become acute in Britain with regard to open or information agreements, whereby sellers in the same market exchange pricing and perhaps other statistical data through the medium of a trade association.