A 1936 Law Is Back in Use

Congress passed a law in 1936 to protect the corner grocer from A&P. In October 2026, the Federal Trade Commission used it against the largest wine and spirits distributor in America.

The law is the Robinson-Patman Act. It bars a supplier from charging one retailer more than a competing retailer for the same goods, unless cost differences justify the gap.

Its origins are pure Washington. During the Depression, chain stores like A&P used their buying power to win discounts that independent grocers could not match. Rep. Wright Patman and Sen. Joseph Robinson responded with an amendment to the Clayton Act, much of it drafted by the wholesale grocers' trade association. President Roosevelt reportedly signed it with reluctance.

For more than twenty years, federal enforcers left the statute on the shelf. The prevailing view was that it protected competitors at the expense of consumers.

That has changed. On October 2, the FTC settled its case against Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, which the commission called its first enforcement action under the Robinson-Patman Act in a generation. The order limits price discrimination against independent retailers in twenty-six states, requires cash payments to independent retailers if a monitor finds they were charged more, and installs an independent monitor for six years.

The detail that matters most for executives is that the case was brought under one administration and finished under the next. A commission whose Republican chairman had dissented from the complaint finished the case anyway. When a dormant law survives a change in administration, it is no longer a footnote. It is an enforcement priority.

Three questions to put to your counsel if your company uses volume-based pricing:

• Can we document the cost savings behind every pricing tier?
• Do our largest customers receive allowances and promotional support that smaller competitors cannot access?
• Who in our organization is tracking which old statutes are coming back into use?

Washington rarely repeals a law. It waits for the politics to come back around.