Minimum Resale Price Fixing Agreements No Longer Per Se Illegal

In a five to four opinion issued June 28, 2007 in Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., the Supreme Court overturned 96 year old precedent that had made it per se illegal under Section 1 of the Sherman Act for a manufacturer to agree with its distributor(s) to set a minimum price that can be charged by the distributor(s) for the goods of the manufacturer. Such agreements will now be viewed under a rule of reason analysis which require the fact finder to weigh the procompetitive and anticompetitive effects of the arrangement.