ABSTRACT
With the process of 'concentration' going to the roots of the retail 'revolution', price discrimination and mergers featuring amongst the prime contributors to that process, and the benign approach of competition law to those contributors helping to fuel the fire of the revolution, the need arises to consider further their treatment, and they are now taken in turn. The practice of discrimination has been generally described as one involving the supplying of goods of like grade and quality to customers of similar standing at different prices, where the difference in price does not correspond with differences in the supplier's costs. While for years it had remained fallow, the subject of price discrimination and the exercise of buying power thus resurfaced. With a Commission inquiry focusing upon it as one of a number of intertwined competition and planning issues, it has once again come to the forefront.
