Well here’s the final word on the subject. Pay the price or do without
Legal Status of Minimum RPM
In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court held that minimum RPM arrangements are per se illegal when a manufacturer agrees with retailers on a minimum retail price.[19] A loophole was created in 1919 when the Court allowed manufacturers to unilaterally impose minimum RPM, provided there was no agreement with retailers. In what is known as the “Colgate Doctrine,” the Court noted that antitrust law, in particular the Sherman Act, “does not prevent a manufacturer engaged in a private business from announcing in advance the prices at which his goods may be resold and refusing to deal with wholesalers and retailers who do not conform to such prices.”[20] Passed in 1890, the Sherman Act was the first U.S. federal antitrust statute. It was designed to promote competition by limiting the monopolistic restraint of trade and certain types of monopolization of markets.