The Vermont Statutes Online
The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly.
NOTE: The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.
Subchapter
004
:
UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES
(Cite as: 6 V.S.A. § 2751)
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§ 2751. Unfair discrimination
A handler doing business in this State and engaged in the business of buying dairy
products for the purpose of manufacture or sale who, or whose agents, officers, or
employees, shall begin or continue such methods or practices as to create a monopoly,
or to restrain trade or to prevent or limit competition or to destroy the business
of a competitor, or to destroy or affect adversely the operations of a producers’
cooperative bargaining or marketing association organized under the Vermont cooperative
marketing act, 11 V.S.A. chapter 7, subchapter 2 or similar laws of another state
and doing business in Vermont, shall discriminate between different sections, communities,
localities, cities, or towns of this State by purchasing such commodity at a higher
price or rate in one section, community, location, city, or town than is paid for
the same commodity by such person, firm, handler, association, or corporation in another
section, community, locality, city, or town after making due allowance for the difference,
if any, in the grade or quality and in the actual cost of transportation from the
point of purchase to the point of manufacture or sale, or who shall so discriminate
between different persons in the same section, community, location, city, or town
by purchasing such commodity at a lower price from one person than paid for the same
commodity to another person after making due allowance for the difference, if any,
in the grade or quality and in the actual cost of transportation from the point of
purchase to the point of manufacture, or who shall so discriminate between different
persons by refusing to purchase, within the limits of its actual requirements, such
commodities from a person, or his or her agent, offering the same for sale, on the
ground that such person has executed a marketing contract with a cooperative marketing
association by the terms of which such cooperative marketing association has been
designated the marketing agent of such person for such commodities, or who shall intimidate
or attempt to intimidate members of such a producers’ cooperative bargaining association
for the purpose of causing them to withdraw from such membership or who shall intimidate
or attempt to intimidate producers of dairy products for the purpose of preventing
them from joining such an association shall be deemed guilty of unfair discrimination.
It shall not be necessary to prove intent in reference to the methods or practices
prohibited in this section, nor shall this section be construed to prevent milk handlers
from paying and milk producers who have installed farm bulk tanks from receiving such
payments in addition to the payment for can milk as may be mutually agreed upon. (Added 1965, No. 175, § 37.)