Whether a secondary-line plaintiff must prove competition with allegedly favored firm

QUESTIONS PRESENTED The Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 13, prohibits “secondary line” price discrimination, which is “price discrimination that injures competition among” the “customers” of a “discriminating seller[]” of acommodity. Volvo Trucks N. Am., Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc., 546 U.S. 164, 176-77 (2006). Below, a fractured panel of the Ninth Circuit created two circuit splits about what a private plaintiff must prove to win such a claim: 1. Whether a secondary-line plaintiff must prove that it competes with the allegedly favored firm for sales to the same customers, as four circuits have concluded, or not, as the Ninth Circuit held below. 2. Whether a claim of antitrust injury can be defeated by an analysis of consumer behavior showing that the allegedly favored firm and the plaintiff do not compete on price, as the Second Circuit has held, or whether that analysis instead is legally irrelevant to antitrust injury, as the Ninth Circuit held below.