## Facts

- Allied Accessories & Auto Parts Co. (Allied) wholesaled auto parts and supplied private-label oil filters to K-Mart but did not manufacture filters.
- K-Mart changed its purchasing policy and decided to sell only oil filters made by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
- Campbell Filter Company (Campbell) contracted with General Motors Corp. (GM) to buy GM OEM oil filters solely for resale to K-Mart.
- GM sold OEM filters to Campbell at a price 10% below GM’s regular warehouse price charged to its regular customers, including Allied.
- GM typically provided regular warehouse-price customers with marketing-related services (e.g., catalogs, advertising reimbursements, and field representatives).
- Under the GM–Campbell arrangement, GM withheld those services and contractually barred Campbell from using GM’s promotional programs.
- K-Mart solicited bids for OEM filters; Campbell bid about 10% lower than Allied and won the K-Mart supply business.
- Allied sued GM alleging unlawful secondary-line price discrimination under § 2(a) of the Robinson–Patman Act (15 U.S.C. § 13(a)).

## Issues

1. Whether GM’s 10% lower price to Campbell, coupled with withholding promotional services, constituted unlawful price discrimination under Robinson–Patman § 2(a) or a permissible cost-justified/functional discount.
2. Whether Allied and Campbell were competing purchasers buying like goods on sufficiently comparable terms to support a § 2(a) claim.
3. Whether Allied produced sufficient evidence of injury to competition, rather than only harm to Allied from losing the K-Mart account.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed judgment for GM.
- The court treated the 10% differential as justified by differences in selling costs and services: Campbell received a lower price but did not receive (and could not use) GM’s promotional programs.
- Allied failed to establish the required competitive injury attributable to unlawful discriminatory pricing.

## Legal Principles

- Robinson–Patman § 2(a) permits price differences that make “due allowance” for cost differences in manufacture, sale, or delivery, including selling-cost differences tied to services.
- A service-adjusted or “functional” discount can be lawful when it reflects the seller’s reduced costs from not providing promotional or support services to the favored buyer.
- A plaintiff must show more than a lost customer; it must prove competitive injury of the type the statute targets (an adverse effect on competition with the favored purchaser), not merely individualized harm.
- Structuring transactions so that a lower price is paired with the elimination of services can be treated as a lawful change in the package sold, rather than discriminatory pricing of the same package.

## Conclusion

The court upheld GM’s discounted price to Campbell because it corresponded to omitted promotional services and associated cost savings, and it held that Allied’s loss of the K-Mart business did not, on this record, establish the competitive injury required for a Robinson–Patman § 2(a) violation.


Allied Accessories & Auto Parts Co. v. Gen. Motors Corp., 825 F.2d 971 (6th Cir. 1987)