Analysis of Antitrust Problems in Franchise

There are perhaps some restrictive clauses in franchise agreement so that antimonopoly regulations are needed. Considering the uniqueness of franchise, the seeming lateral monopoly agreements in the domain, such as dividing market, fixing or changing price, restricting output or sales volume, generally should be released. But longitudinal monopoly agreements in the domain, such as fixing resale price of franchisee or restricting the minimum price of franchisee by franchisor, should be strictly forbidden. In the franchise domain, relevant market should not be composed of products, services or raw and processed materials of one franchise system but be composed of products, services or raw and processed materials of all substitutive franchise systems in the same industry. We should not presume that a series of intellectual properties necessarily confer market power upon their owner, franchisor.