Fair Trade Act
Quick Summary
The California Fair Trade Act of 1931, amended in 1933, allowed manufacturers to set minimum resale prices for branded goods, binding all resellers, including non-signers. This practice, known as price maintenance, aimed to protect independent retailers from price-cutting by larger chain stores during the Great Depression.1
The federal Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 supported these state laws by exempting such price-maintenance agreements from antitrust laws, allowing manufacturers more control over pricing. However, by the 1960s, enforcement became impractical, and by 1975, federal law repealed these provisions, leading to the repeal of most state fair-trade laws.12
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