Consumer Protection in Resale Price Maintenance Practices

Abstract

Fair business competition is greatly needed to create a conducive business climate. Regulations governing the fair business competition are expected to ensure the business opportunities for business actors  and to prevent monopolistic practices and or unfair business competitions, and at the same time to protect the consumers. In Indonesia, the Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) is applied as an effort or actions of the upstream businesses such as manufacturing companies or suppliers to control the price when the goods are resold. Control and supervision of the Resale Price Maintenance practices are necessary considering that the monopolistic practice that creates unfair business competition is still common in the society. This study aimed to reveal how consumer protection in the Resale Price Maintenance practices works. This study was conducted using the normative or doctrinal research method with the statute and conceptual approaches. From the findings, it can be concluded that the consumer protection in Resale Price Maintenance practices is still very frail so that it is necessary to reconstruct the provisions in resale price maintenance which can be performed by reconstructing the criminal sanctions for business actors who violate the resale price maintenance regulations that can cause monopolistic practices and unfair business competitions.