Fair Balanced and Competitive Business Practices

Abstract
The United States has many laws to further fair, balanced and competitive businesses. I believe these laws are useful and are put into place to protect businesses, organizations and consumers. These laws help protect against copyrighting, discrimination, insider trading and trademarking. Businesses must engage in ethical business practices which include abiding by government laws in order to be more successful and profitable. Bovee & Thill (2012) says that there is a great amount of concern regarding the ethics of business leaders, both current and future and the public seems to agree. The changing nature of business from manufacturing to knowledge technology has called for new levels of regulation on the part of federal agencies.

Fair Balanced and Competitive Business Practices

Business enterprises play an important role in the society. However, these enterprises could exploit other players in the market or affect consumers’ welfare in one way or another. In a bid to promote fair and competitive business practices, the United States formulated and implemented antitrust laws. Among them are the Sherman Act of 1890, Federal Trade Commission Act, and 1914’s Clayton Act (Broder, 2012). Over the years, these laws have proved adequate, suitable, and relevant in the business world.
The primary objective of the aforementioned laws is to promote fairness and competition among businesses. In other words, these laws make it harder for business players to create monopolies, mergers, or collisions that disadvantage other business operators in the market. For example, the federal government took action against AT&T and Microsoft in 1980s and 1990s respectively, following their business operations that created a monopoly in their respective industries (Broder, 2012).
Antitrust laws are useful and beneficial because they protect the welfare of the majority in the economy and all the markets therein. Legal regulations through these laws ensure that firms do not collude to form cartels or influence market prices in a way that either exploits consumers or forces other businesses out of markets. In so doing, business processes become balanced, fair, and competitive for all players. On the same note, these laws prohibit unlawful business acquisitions that would result in consumer exploitation in one way or another.

The Robinson-Patman Act prohibits price discrimination. An interesting aspect of the Robinson- Patman Act is that it applies to both sellers and buyers who “knowingly” induce or receive an unlawful discrimination in price. It also stipulates that certain types of price cutting are criminal offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment. Specifically, the legislation outlaws price differences that “substantially” weaken competition unless these differences can be justified by lower selling costs associated with larger purchases. It also prohibits advertising and promotional allowances unless they are offered to all retailers, large and small. This act applies to business-to-business transactions and does not apply to consumers in business transactions. Undefined (2013)

References
Bovee, C.L & Thill V.J. (2012). Business in Action 6th Ed. Appendix A-5
Broder, D. F. (2012). U.S. Antitrust Law and Enforcement: A Practice Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Undefined. (2013). Business Basics. Laws to Promote Fair and Competitive Practices. Retrieved November 15, 2014, from http://business-basics.org/laws-to-promote-fair-and-competitive-practices/.