                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

&#8220;BLIND BIDDING&#8221; PROHIBITED (§ 59.1-258)

A. Blind bidding is hereby prohibited within the Commonwealth. No bids shall be
returnable, no negotiations for the exhibition or licensing of a motion picture
shall take place, and no license agreement or any of its terms shall be agreed
to, for the exhibition of any motion picture within the Commonwealth before the
motion picture has either been trade screened within the Commonwealth or the
District of Columbia or Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties, Maryland, or
before such motion picture, at the option of the distributor, otherwise has been
made available for viewing within the Commonwealth or the District of Columbia
or Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties, Maryland, by all exhibitors from whom
the distributor is soliciting bids or with whom the distributor is negotiating
for the right to exhibit the motion picture.

B. A distributor shall provide reasonable and uniform notice of the trade
screening of any motion picture to those exhibitors within the Commonwealth from
whom he intends to solicit bids or with whom he intends to negotiate for the
right to exhibit that motion picture.

C. Any purported waiver of the prohibition against blind bidding in this chapter
shall be void and unenforceable.

HISTORY: 1978, c. 764.