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Cartels
A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among firms. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there are a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion is to increase individual member's profits by reducing competition. Competition laws forbid cartels. Identifying and breaking up cartels is an important part of the competition policy in most countries, although proving the existence of a cartel is rarely easy, as firms are usually not so careless as to put agreements to collude on paper.[1][2]
Several economic studies and legal decisions of antitrust authorities have found that the median price increase achieved by cartels in the last 200 years is around 25%. Private international cartels (those with participants from two or more nations) had an average price increase of 28%, whereas domestic cartels averaged 18%. Less than 10% of all cartels in the sample failed to raise market prices.
Cartels And Compliance
A post earlier this month reported the sentencing of former Bridgestone manager Misao Hioki to two years in jail and an $80,000 fine for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiring to rig bids...
Australia Gets Tough on Cartels
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol There have been a number of news stories recently on Australian efforts to toughen their anti-cartel laws...
What Do We Really Know About Export Cartels and What is the Appropriate Solution?
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol D. Daniel Sokol of the University of Florida Levin College of Law (i.e., me), has posted What Do We Really Know About Export Cartels and What is the Appropriate Solution? ABSTRACT: This article responds to...
Drug Cartels And Propaganda
What if major crime groups started to post banners, drop leaflets, use noise campaigns (cars with speakers broadcasting a message), run Internet videos with gruesome scenes, and other propaganda techniques to question the government? What if the messages stated that a public official, a police officer, a special agent, a whole department, and so on [...
Posner, Unions, The UAW and Cartels
Gary Becker and Richard Posner have a piar of interesting posts about the UAW and costs to American car manufacturers (Posner’s post, Becker’s post)...
BIICL International Cartels Conference
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) will hold an International Cartels Conference on February 26 in London...
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