## Facts

- Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. manufactured heavy-duty trucks and sold through franchised dealers, including Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
- Heavy-duty truck sales commonly occurred through customer-specific competitive bidding: customers solicited bids; dealers requested Volvo “concessions” (wholesale discounts) to support their bids; trucks were built to order only if the dealer won the bid.
- Volvo stated a policy that if multiple Volvo dealers bid for the same customer, it would provide the same concession to both.
- After Volvo announced plans to enlarge dealer markets and reduce the dealer network, Reeder suspected Volvo was favoring other Volvo dealers with larger concessions to weaken or eliminate Reeder.
- Reeder relied on (1) two instances of head-to-head bidding against another Volvo dealer and (2) comparisons between Reeder’s concessions on certain bids and more favorable concessions Volvo gave other Volvo dealers on unrelated bids where Reeder did not participate.
- A jury found for Reeder on a federal Robinson–Patman Act claim and a separate Arkansas franchise-law claim; the Eighth Circuit affirmed the federal verdict, reasoning that Volvo dealers competed in overlapping markets even without bidding for the same customer.

## Issues

1. Whether a manufacturer is liable for secondary-line price discrimination under Robinson–Patman Act § 2(a) absent proof that the disfavored dealer actually competed contemporaneously with favored dealers for the same retail customer.
2. Whether evidence of more favorable concessions to other dealers on unrelated, separate bids can establish competitive injury between “favored” and “disfavored” purchasers under § 2(a).

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment on the federal Robinson–Patman claim and remanded.
- The Court held that Reeder failed to show the required injury to competition between favored and disfavored purchasers because Reeder did not compete with the alleged beneficiaries for the same customers in the transactions relied upon.
- The Court confined its review to the federal antitrust claim and left the state-law judgment undisturbed.

## Legal Principles

- Robinson–Patman Act § 2(a) secondary-line cases target price discrimination that injures competition between the seller’s favored and disfavored purchasers competing to resell the same product.
- A plaintiff must show discriminatory pricing between purchasers and a competitive injury between those purchasers; harm to a single dealer or dissatisfaction with uneven concessions is not enough.
- In customer-specific competitive bidding for specially ordered products, secondary-line competitive injury ordinarily is not shown without proof of contemporaneous, head-to-head competition for the same customer and a price difference affecting that competition.
- Price comparisons drawn from different customers, different bids, and different times—where the plaintiff did not compete for the same sale as the alleged favored purchaser—do not establish the competitive injury required by § 2(a).
- Post-selection adjustments to a dealer’s concession, after the customer has already chosen the dealer, do not establish actionable discrimination affecting the competitive contest for that sale.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Robinson–Patman secondary-line liability in a customer-specific bidding market requires proof that the disfavored dealer competed directly and contemporaneously with a favored dealer for the same customer and was disadvantaged by a discriminatory price difference in that contest; broader comparisons across unrelated transactions are insufficient.


Volvo Trucks N. Am., Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc., 546 U.S. 164 (2006)