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OCTOBER TERM, 2005 Syllabus
VOLVO TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA, INC. v. REEDERSIMCO GMC, INC. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit No. 04–905. Argued October 31, 2005—Decided January 10, 2006 Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. (Reeder), an authorized dealer of heavy-duty trucks manufactured by Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. (Volvo), gen erally sold those trucks through an industry-wide competitive bidding process, whereby the retail customer describes its specific product re quirements and invites bids from dealers it selects based on such factors as an existing relationship, geography, and reputation. Once a Volvo dealer receives the customer’s specifications, it requests from Volvo a discount or “concession” off the wholesale price. Volvo decides on a case-by-case basis whether to offer a concession. The dealer then uses its Volvo discount in preparing its bid; it purchases trucks from Volvo only if and when the retail customer accepts its bid. Reeder was one of many regional Volvo dealers. Although nothing prohibits a Volvo dealer from bidding outside its territory, Reeder rarely bid against an other Volvo dealer. In the atypical case in which a retail customer so licited a bid from more than one Volvo dealer, Volvo’s stated policy was to provide the same price concession to each dealer. In 1997, after Volvo announced plans to enlarge the size of its dealers’ markets and to reduce by almost half the number of its dealers, Reeder learned that Volvo had given another dealer a price concession greater than the dis counts Reeder typically received. Reeder, suspecting it was one of the dealers Volvo sought to elimi nate, filed this suit under, inter alia, § 2 of the Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13, alleging that its sales and profits declined because Volvo offered other dealers more favorable price concessions. At trial, Reeder presented evidence of two instances when it bid against another Volvo dealer for a particular sale. In the first, although Volvo initially offered Reeder a lower concession, Volvo ultimately matched the concession offered to the competing dealer. Neither dealer won the bid. In the second, Volvo initially offered the two dealers the same concession, but increased the other dealer’s dis count after it, rather than Reeder, was selected. Reeder dominantly relied on comparisons between concessions it received on four occasions when it bid successfully against non-Volvo dealers (and thus purchased Volvo trucks), with more favorable concessions other successful Volvo
