“[Fair Prices for Small Businesses Act] will help make life more affordable for Americans”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director

ILSR Applauds Senator Murphy’s Proposal to Strengthen the Robinson-Patman Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 19, 2026) — Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), issued the following statement endorsing the Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act introduced by Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz).

“Today, giant chain stores and online retailers use their power to unfairly dominate the retail economy at the expense of independent stores and consumers. As we’ve seen with the recent Pepsi lawsuit implicating Walmart, and multiple others, powerful retailers are not only demanding the lowest prices from their suppliers, they are actively conspiring with those suppliers to increase what smaller stores have to pay for the same goods — making the food we buy more expensive and, in many cases, cutting off communities’ access to food by forcing local grocers out of business.

“This is illegal. The Robinson-Patman Act was enacted specifically to stop it. And yet, for nearly 50 years, enforcement has been virtually nonexistent — in part because the law creates stumbling blocks for enforcers and judges seeking to punish powerful retailers, and undermines the law’s intent to maintain fairness across the retail industry.

“Senator Murphy’s proposal would close loopholes and sharpen the language of the law so enforcers and judges can finally do what Congress intended: hold powerful retailers accountable for the pricing schemes that unfairly undermine competition and rip off shoppers. The bill also extends protections to the services independent businesses depend on to operate — payment processing, point-of-sale software, and more — closing another loophole that dominant players have used to gain an unfair advantage.

“We applaud Senator Murphy and the bill’s co-sponsors, Senators Welch and Gallego, for their leadership on addressing this rampant issue that harms so many American shoppers and independent businesses. These amendments, and the greater enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, will help make life more affordable for Americans and will allow local grocers and stores to continue to serve their communities.”

If enacted, the Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act would streamline enforcement of the federal Robinson-Patman Act in several significant ways, including by:

• Eliminating the requirement that a powerful retailer “knowingly” forced a supplier to accept a discriminatory price — a loophole that acted as an unnecessary roadblock to holding those retailers accountable for their bullying. The amendment would remove the “knowingly” requirement for retailers with more than $100 billion in annual sales.
• Clarifying that retailers can be held liable for benefiting from discrimination that violates any provision of the Robinson-Patman Act, such as rules against special treatment for processing and handling.
• Closing a loophole that allowed a supplier to get away with price discrimination if they could claim the discriminatory price was attempting to match what a rival supplier was charging the same store for a similar product.
• Expanding the ban on price discrimination to cover services, rather than just physical goods.

Price discrimination, in which chain stores use their size and power to force food manufacturers and farmers to give them discounts and preferential treatment that aren’t offered to smaller stores, has been illegal under the Robinson-Patman Act since 1936.

For over five decades, ILSR has worked to advance policies that disperse economic power and strengthen local communities. In recent years, we have researched and advocated to address the problems and downstream effects of price discrimination in the grocery sector.