独家交易的“绩效型”分销竞争解释

Competition"On the Merits"for Distribution Explanation of Exclusive Dealing

《谢尔曼法》第2条项下一些判决强调竞争过程,导致了一种动辄给独家分销合同贴上非“绩效竞争”标签的不幸倾向。然而,独家分销合同经常涉及“绩效竞争”。经济学和美国反垄断法都要求,反竞争的独家合同必须在一段相当长时间内覆盖很大比例的分销。三种理论认为,生产商在分销竞争中向分销商过度支付报酬或者支付报酬不足,构成非“绩效竞争”。但这些理论在反垄断法领域的适用性有限。相反,独家交易具有多种效率解释。首先,独家交易的一个公认效率理据是防止对生产商投资“搭便车”,即防止分销商将生产商的投资用于促销后者竞争对手的产品。其次,独家交易防止分销商对生产商购买额外促销服务的报酬安排“搭便车”。分销商提供促销服务的激励往往不足,生产商需要额外购买促销服务,并提供相应的报酬,其形式多种多样。然而,分销商有动力把生产商购买的促销服务转向促销其他生产商的替代品,以获得更大的分销利润率。独家交易能够防止此种搭便车,从而以合同方式保证生产商将获得其付费购买的促销服务,并且通过鼓励生产商与经销商订立买卖促销服务的合同,实现分销商就促销服务获得报酬的最大化。再次,在生产商争取独家分销合同时,分销商实际上将所有客户作为一个整体提供给相互竞争的生产商,每个生产商面临的需求弹性因此变大。这会导致生产商降低实际批发价,并经由分销商相互间的竞争促成零售价的降低。因此,独家交易是绩效型分销竞争的一个关键因素。在所有看似“提高竞争对手成本”的被控排斥竞争行为案件中,反竞争效果要件都应当作为最低限度的保障。

Some Sherman Act Section 2 decisions put legal emphasis on the competitive process,which creates an unfortunate tendency to label exclusive distribution contracts as not involving“competition on the merits.”However,exclusive distribution contracts often involve“competition on the merits.”Both economics and U.S.antitrust law require anticompetitive exclusive contracts to cover a large share of distribution for a significant period of time.There are three theories opining that manufactures’overcompensation or undercompensation for distributors during the process of competition for distribution does not involve“competition on the merits”.However,these economic theories have limited antitrust applicability.On the contrary,exclusive dealing has many efficiency rationales.Firstly,a commonly recognized one is that exclusive dealing prevents distributors“free-riding”on manufacturer investments,i.e.prevents distributors switching manufacturers’investments to the promotion of rival manufacturers’brands.Secondly,exclusive dealing prevents distributors“free-riding”on manufactures’compensation arrangements for purchasing extra distributor promotional efforts.Distributors usually have insufficient incentives for supplying distributor promotional efforts for a particular manufacturer;to overcome this reluctance,it’s necessary for a manufacture to purchase increased promotion and provide compensation for this,which take various forms other than manufacturer investments.However,distributors have incentives to switch such promotional service paid by the manufacturer to its rival alternatives,in order to get higher distribution margins.Exclusive dealing may be an efficient way to avoid this distributor“free-riding”problem,contractually assuring manufacturers that they will receive the promotional efforts they are paying for,and maximizing the compensation received by distributors for their promotional efforts by facilitating the contract between the manufacturer and distributor for desired promotion.Furthermore,when manufacturers competing for an exclusive distribution contract,the distributor is essentially offering all its customers as a group,rendering the elasticity of demand faced by each manufacturer increase.This will reduce the manufacturers’actual wholesale price,which will at least partly be passed on to consumers through competition between distributors.Therefore,exclusive dealing is an essential element of“on the merits”competition for distribution.The requirement of anticompetitive effect should be a minimum safeguard in all cases of alleged exclusionary contracts that appear to“raise rivals’costs.”