indirect purchaser doctrine
indirect-purchaser doctrine. Antitrust. The principle that in litigation for price discrimination, the court will ignore sham middle parties in determining whether different prices were paid by different customers for the same goods. • This doctrine gives standing to bring an antitrust action to a party who is not an immediate purchaser of a product. Thus, if a manufacturer sells a product to a retailer, but dictates the terms by which the retailer must sell the product to a consumer, a court will ignore the retailer and treat the consumer as the direct purchaser of the product.
