The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled for the manufacturer in a pricing case that pitted the supplier against a retailer. The decision could prompt more suppliers to consider minimum resale price-setting programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June made it easier for manufacturers to set minimum resale prices by overturning the per se” illegality of minimum resale price agreements.

Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that challenges to minimum resale price agreements or contracts will be judged on a case-by-case basis by the “rule of reason,” a more flexible legal doctrine that requires the challenger to prove price-setting was unreasonably anticompetitive and did economic harm.

“Per se” was a much stricter enforcement that assumed that minimum price setting …