The Consumer Grocery Pricing Fairness Act, proposed in the Minnesota House of Representatives, aims to promote fair pricing practices in the grocery industry by preventing large grocery retailers from engaging in unfair pricing agreements that disadvantage smaller retailers and wholesalers.

Key Provisions:

1. Definitions:

   • Defines covered goods as grocery items excluding gasoline, prescription drugs, tobacco, and alcohol.
   • Identifies covered retailers, suppliers, and wholesalers, including dominant covered retailers, which are large retailers operating in multiple states with annual sales exceeding $18 billion.
   • Specifies price differential and terms of sale to ensure consistency in pricing agreements.

2. Fair Pricing Requirements:

   • Requires covered suppliers (large manufacturers and wholesalers) to offer the same terms of sale to all retailers and wholesalers that buy in similar volume unit quantities.
   • Mandates suppliers to provide, upon request, anonymized pricing details of contracts with dominant covered retailers from the preceding 180 days.
   • Prohibits dominant covered retailers from using their purchasing power to restrict the availability of goods to smaller competitors.

3. Defenses & Immunity:

   • Allows defenses in cases where price differences result from efficiencies (e.g., self-distribution) or were voluntarily accepted through reasonable consideration.
   • Grants immunity to suppliers if they were coerced into violating the law by dominant retailers, provided they report such behavior to the Attorney General.

4. Enforcement & Penalties:

   • Authorizes the Attorney General and harmed parties to seek injunctions and civil penalties.
   • Civil penalties may be up to one and a half times the actual damages or the pricing differential suffered.

5. Relationship to Antitrust Laws:

   • The act does not override existing antitrust laws but complements them by addressing unfair pricing practices.

Purpose:

The bill seeks to protect small and mid-sized grocery retailers from anti-competitive pricing schemes by large national chains, ensuring fair access to wholesale pricing and promoting competition in the grocery sector.