Introduction to Symposium on Buyer Power and Antitrust

Antitrust has much more typically focused on the market power of sellers rather than buyers. Recent decades, however, have witnessed the rise of very large buyers in previously more fragmented industries, such as retailing, farming, ranching, natural resource extraction, and health care. The purchasing clout demonstrated by these large buyers, in turn, may enhance the advantage they have vis-à-vis their own competitors. Retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Costco, apparently have such clout with suppliers. Is this really something new? From an antitrust perspective, does it matter and should it matter? The articles in this Antitrust Law Journal Symposium on Buyer Power analyze the phenomenon of buyer power in its various forms and suggest alternatives for antitrust policy and enforcement with respect to buyer power.