Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In neo-classical economics, price fixing is inefficient. The anti-competitive agreement by producers to fix prices above the market price transfers some of the consumer surplus to those producers and also results in a deadweight loss. International price fixing by private entities can be prosecuted under the antitrust laws of many countries.
A federal district court in February 1961 fined 29 electrical manufacturing companies and 45 individuals a total of $1,924,500 for violating the antitrust laws by fixing prices and rigging bids on heavy electrical equipment, some of which was sold to the Government. [46]
Anti-competitive practices are commonly only deemed illegal when the practice results in a substantial dampening in competition, hence why for a firm to be punished for any form of anti-competitive behavior they generally need to be a monopoly or a dominant firm in a duopoly or oligopoly who has significant influence over the market.
Co-sponsored by Senator Joseph T. Robinson (D-AR) and Representative Wright Patman (D-TX), it was designed to protect small retail shops against competition from chain stores by fixing a minimum price for retail products. Specifically, the law prevents suppliers, wholesalers, or manufacturers from supplying goods to "preferred customers" at a ...
[3] [page needed] The term is also applied to businesses that play on political corruption to obtain government contracts. Some types of profiteering are illegal, such as price fixing [ 4 ] [ page needed ] syndicates, for example on fuel subsidies (see British Airways price-fixing allegations ), and other anti-competitive behaviour.
According to Adam Smith, people of the same trade seldom meet without the conversation turning to conspiring ways to raise prices and defraud the public. [citation needed] Market allocation is generally regarded as illegal in the United States, unless the Department of Treasury or equivalent body authorizes it.
The United States Postal Service is an example of a coercive monopoly created through laws that ban potential competitors such as UPS or FedEx from offering competing services (in this case, first-class and standard (formerly called "third-class") mail delivery). [14] Government monopolies also mandate taxpayers to subsidize these firms.
It is also known as antitrust law (or just antitrust [4]), anti-monopoly law, [1] and trade practices law; the act of pushing for antitrust measures or attacking monopolistic companies (known as trusts) is commonly known as trust busting. [5] The history of competition law reaches back to the Roman Empire.