by Karla Ciaglo CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, Conn. — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT is looking to strengthen a decades-old federal antitrust law, targeting pricing practices by retail giants that he says are quietly driving independent businesses out of existence.
The Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act , Senate Bill 4147, co-sponsored by Sens. Peter Welch, D-VT., Ruben Gallego, D-AZ, John Fetterman, D-PA. and Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, would fortify the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 law barring suppliers from charging competing buyers different prices for the same goods when doing so harms competition. The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Murphy formally unveiled the legislation at locally owned Key Food Supermarket in Hartford and was joined by independent business owners who said the pricing gap between what they pay and what corporate chains pay for identical goods has become unsustainable.
“The money you’re putting into this store is going right back into your community,” Murphy said. “That’s not how it feels to shop at Walmart. That’s not how it feels to shop at Amazon.”
The Robinson-Patman Act was written specifically to protect small retailers from the market leverage of large chains, but federal enforcement has been sparse for decades. Murphy pointed to Food Lion, a grocery chain that operates primarily in the South, which tried to match Walmart’s discounted Pepsi prices — only to have Pepsi raise its wholesale costs in response, penalizing a smaller competitor for trying to compete. The pattern, Murphy said, repeats across the industry wherever large chains hold enough market power to extract pricing advantages smaller rivals cannot access.
“That is illegal,” Murphy said. “And it happened over and over again.”
In January 2025, and the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission sued PepsiCo for price discrimination — the first government enforcement action under Robinson-Patman in roughly 25 years. The FTC had also sued Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the country’s largest alcohol distributor, alleging it charged independent retailers 12% to 67% more than large chains for identical products.
After Donald Trump returned to office for his second term, the FTC voted to dismiss the PepsiCo lawsuit without prejudice in May 2025. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the Biden-Harris FTC had rushed to authorize the case just three days before Trump’s inauguration, calling it “a nakedly political effort” to pursue little more than a hunch that Pepsi had violated the law.
Murphy said he does not expect the current administration to back his bill, citing Trump’s record of favoring large corporations — but was equally critical of his own party, noting the Obama Justice Department brought zero Robinson-Patman lawsuits.
“Democrats and Republicans in Washington have both let this law languish,” Murphy said.
Retail store closures hit their highest level since the pandemic in 2024, with 7,325 stores shuttered nationwide, according to retail research firm Coresight Research. Projections suggest as many as 15,000 more could close in 2025. Amazon commands nearly 40% of U.S. online retail.
Anthony Pena, vice president of the National Supermarket Association and owner of City Supermarkets, said the pricing disparity his members face is “just unreal.”
“Independent grocery stores all over the country have no way of defending ourselves — our independent owners are rooted in these communities,” Pena said. “All we’re looking for is an opportunity to serve the community in ways that national chains do not. Being Walmart, Stop & Shop or Amazon does not give you the right to come in and bulldoze the independents who are constantly adapting to serve their neighbors.”
Mark Thiede opened Two Wrasslin Cats, a cat café and coffee house in East Haddam, in 2013 as a retirement project. In the years since, he said, the math has gotten harder. His bakery recently raised prices again, and the per-pound cost of turkey and roast beef has climbed roughly 50% over two years — costs that ultimately get passed to customers.
“The cost of our ingredients is the lifeblood of our existence,” he said, noting that choosing between supplies and trying to keep prices affordable for customers has been almost impossible.
Meg Flynn, owner of Black Rock Books in Bridgeport, said independent businesses shouldn’t have to be big to survive.
“Faceless transactions have dystopia written all over it,” she said.
Flynn said margins are getting slimmer as independent shops continue to be shut out of the pricing deals available to larger competitors.
“When a brand new hardcover costs us $35 with a 30 percent discount, how can we compete?” she said.
The bill would extend Robinson-Patman’s reach to services, closing a gap that allows food delivery platforms to offer preferential rates to chains that they do not extend to independent restaurants. It would make retailers — not just their suppliers — legally liable for price discrimination, meaning the FTC could pursue large businesses for pressuring suppliers into illegal discounts. The bill also eliminates the “meeting competition” defense, which allows sellers to justify discriminatory pricing by claiming they were matching a rival’s offer, and presumes damages for any plaintiff who proves unlawful discrimination — removing a barrier that has made private litigation impractical for smaller businesses.
Where the original law targets suppliers, the bill raises the stakes for retailers.
Murphy acknowledged the bill faces long odds in the current Congress but said he sees bipartisan potential.
“It’s not going to pass tomorrow,” Murphy said “But there is growing interest in the country in breaking up the power of these massive retailers.”