Bribery and Brokerage: An Analysis of Bribery in Domestic and Foreign Commerce Under Section 2 ( c ) of the Robinson-Patman Act

This Note first analyzes the substantive and jurisdictional criteria of section 2(c) to evaluate the possible and the desirable scope of its applicability to commercial bribery. The Note next asks whether this statute reaches bribery of domestic and foreign government officials and concludes that where the requirements of section 2(c) are otherwise met and where the person accepting the bribe is acting administratively rather than politically, the statute could be applied to bribery of agents of domestic governments. However, a wholesale application of section 2( c) to bribery of foreign government agents would leave American competitors in foreign commerce defenseless when competitors not subject to the American antitrust laws bribed foreign customers’ agents. Since this might exclude Americans from many important overseas contracts without appreciably benefiting competition in any market, application of section 2( c) to bribery of foreign government agents should be resisted unless the courts are willing to permit “defensive bribery.”