FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
Washington, D.C. (October 02, 2026) — Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), issued the following statement after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chose to end its prosecution of wine and spirits distributor Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits before it went to trial. Under the settlement, Southern Glazer’s must end discriminatory payments between chain retailers and independent liquor stores. But the company admits no wrongdoing and will pay nothing for the years of overcharges at the heart of the case.
“The FTC’s claims against Southern Glazer’s were clear: It had used its power as the country’s largest wine and liquor distributor to give sweetheart deals to its largest buyers, including Total Wine & More, while charging far higher prices to small, independent stores. When the FTC filed its Robinson-Patman Act lawsuit against Southern Glazer’s, it appeared that the agency was committed to restoring fairness as the ultimate guiding light of antitrust enforcement.
“This settlement falls short of creating the precedent and deterrent needed to curb the rampant price discrimination and corporate bullying throughout the retail economy. Southern Glazer’s walks away without paying a dime for the alleged overcharges to independent retailers. Because this is a consent decree and not a court ruling after trial, this settlement does nothing to improve upon the mixed legal precedent around Robinson-Patman Act enforcement, potentially making future cases more difficult.
“Furthermore, this settlement puts extraordinary pressure on an external monitor to detect and end any of the company’s future discriminatory payments between retailers. It limits the enforcement of the consent decree to specific states over the next six years, regardless of how Southern Glazer’s footprint might expand or change during that period. It also fails to address a more pressing issue in the retail economy: the extraordinary power large chain stores use to demand unfair, discriminatory prices from their suppliers. This settlement is particularly discouraging in the wake of the agency’s decision to drop its prosecution of PepsiCo for its egregious violation of the Robinson-Patman Act.
“We encourage the FTC to continue its renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act as a way to promote fairness, affordability, and robust competition in the retail economy. Any guidance the FTC drafts or issues on enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act should be framed within the broader goal of ensuring that businesses of all sizes can compete on a level playing field and serve the communities in which they reside.”
Price discrimination, in which powerful suppliers conspire with chain stores to secure discounts and preferential treatment that aren’t offered to smaller stores, has been illegal under the Robinson-Patman Act since 1936. However, this law has been underenforced by the FTC for decades. The Southern Glazer’s case was the first time the FTC enforced the Robinson-Patman Act in nearly 25 years.
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 across the retail sector.
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About the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a national nonprofit research and educational organization founded in 1974. ILSR has a vision of thriving, diverse, equitable communities. To reach this vision, we dismantle concentrated power and equip changemakers to build communities with locally accountable power. We believe that democracy can only thrive when economic and political power is widely dispersed. Whether it’s fighting back against the outsize power of monopolies like Amazon or advocating to keep local renewable energy in the community that produced it, ILSR advocates for solutions that harness the power of citizens and communities.