It’s pretty common for there to be a ‘minimum advertised price’ (MAP) where a brand can cut retailers off if they advertise a price below it - this is why so many stores will have the exact same price on a given product and why you’ll sometimes see the ‘lower price in cart’ message.
It sounds like the issue here is that Walmart managed to get Energizer to have a higher MAP price, but I’m not sure how much more collusion-y that is than MAP prices in general.
The article makes a direct reference to "price at checkout" though it's not quite clear to me if that wording was intentional. If they really mean "price at checkout" then we are talking about blatant price fixing that goes beyond MAP and is quite serious.
>Walmart rivals allegedly risked higher wholesale prices or being cut off by Energizer, the largest U.S. disposable battery maker, if they charged less at checkout than Walmart, the world's largest retailer.
There are all sorts of games brands/retailers play with these. It also wouldn’t surprise me at all if Walmart avoided language that went as far as collusion, but did make clear they needed a certain margin and were willing to pay a higher price.
It sounds like the issue here is that Walmart managed to get Energizer to have a higher MAP price, but I’m not sure how much more collusion-y that is than MAP prices in general.