The potential competitive harms from the existence and abuse of buyer power

This chapter describes the harms to competition that can result from the abuse of buyer power. It starts with an analysis of harms resulting from exploitation that include depressed prices, discrimination among producers, uncompensated shifting of risks and costs to producers and the potential that the harms will flow upstream to suppliers of the supplier. It then describes the exclusionary harms that buyer power can cause to competitors of the buyer both as buyers and in any downstream markets where they compete. These practices include exclusive contracts, inducing refusals to deal by producers, most favored nation type clauses in buying contracts and predatory buying practices that increase the cost of inputs to competitors of the buyer. The final part of the chapter argues that abuse of buyer power generally and monopsony in particular is more harmful to the competitive process than is abuse of monopoly.