![RWKS Syndikatsgebäude-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/RWKS_Syndikatsgeb%C3%A4ude-2.jpg)
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who
collude
Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...
with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Most jurisdictions consider it anti-competitive behavior and have outlawed such practices. Cartel behavior includes
price fixing
Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...
, bid rigging, and reductions in output. The doctrine in economics that analyzes cartels is
cartel theory Cartel theory is usually understood as the doctrine of economic cartels. However, since the concept of 'cartel' does not have to be limited to the field of the economy, doctrines on non-economic cartels are conceivable in principle. Such exist alrea ...
. Cartels are distinguished from other forms of collusion or anti-competitive organization such as
corporate merger
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
s.
Etymology
The word ''cartel'' comes from the Italian word ''
cartello'', which means a "leaf of paper" or "placard", and is itself derived from the Latin ''charta'' meaning "card".
The Italian word became ''cartel'' in
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
, which was borrowed into English. In English, the word was originally used for a written agreement between warring nations to regulate the treatment and exchange of prisoners from the 1690s onward.
From 1899 onwards, the usage of the word became generalized as to mean
any intergovernmental agreement between rival nations.
The use of the English word cartel to describe an economic group rather than international agreements was derived much later in the 1800s from the German ''Kartell'', which also has its origins in the French ''cartel''.
It was first used between German railway companies in 1846 to describe tariff- and technical
standardization
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
efforts. The first time the word was referred to describe a kind of restriction of competition was by the Austro-Hungarian political scientist
Lorenz von Stein
Lorenz von Stein (18 November 1815 – 23 September 1890) was a German economist, sociologist, and public administration scholar from Eckernförde. As an advisor to Meiji period Japan, his liberal political views influenced the wording of the C ...
,
who wrote on tariff cartels:
History
Cartels have existed since ancient times.
Guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s in the European
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, associations of craftsmen or merchants of the same trade, have been regarded as cartel-like. Tightly organized sales cartels existed in the mining industry of the late Middle Ages, like the 1301 salt syndicate in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, or the
Alaun
An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double salt, double sulfate salt (chemistry), salt of aluminium with the general chemical formula, formula , where is a valence (chemistry), monovalent cation such as potassium or a ...
cartel of 1470 between the
Papal State
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
and Naples. Both unions had common sales organizations for overall production called the ''Societas Communis Vendicionis'' ('Common Sales Society').
Laissez-faire
''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
(liberal) economic conditions dominated Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Around 1870, cartels first appeared in industries formerly under
free-market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
conditions. Although cartels existed in all economically developed countries, the core area of cartel activities was in central Europe. The
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
and
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
were nicknamed the "lands of the cartels". Cartels were also widespread in the United States during the period of
robber barons and industrial
trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
s.
The creation of cartels increased globally after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. They became the leading form of
market organization
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
, particularly in Europe and Japan. In the 1930s, authoritarian regimes such as
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, Italy under
Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
, and Spain under
Franco
Franco may refer to:
Name
* Franco (name)
* Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975
* Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître"
Prefix
* Franco, a prefix used when ref ...
used cartels to organize their
corporatist economies. Between the late 19th century and around 1945, the United States was ambivalent about cartels and trusts. There were periods of both opposition to
market concentration
In economics, market concentration is a function of the number of firms and their respective shares of the total production (alternatively, total capacity or total reserves) in a market. In any industry, a handful of firms that hold a significa ...
and relative tolerance of cartels. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the United States strictly turned away from cartels. After 1945, American-promoted
market liberalism
The term market liberalism is used in two distinct ways.
In the United States, the term is used as a synonym to classical liberalism. In this sense, market liberalism depicts a political ideology, combining a market economy with personal liberty ...
led to a worldwide cartel ban, where cartels continue to be obstructed in an increasing number of countries and circumstances.
Types
Cartels have many structures and functions that ideally enable corporations to navigate and control market uncertainties and gain collusive profits within their industry. A typical cartel often requires what competition authorities refer to as a CAU (Contact, Agreement or Understanding). Typologies have emerged to distinguish distinct forms of cartels:
* Selling or buying cartels unite against the cartel's customers or suppliers, respectively. The former type is more frequent than the latter.
* Domestic cartels only have members from one country, whereas international cartels have members from more than one country. There have been full-fledged international cartels that have comprised the whole world, such as the international steel cartel of the period between World War I and II.
* Price cartels engage in
price fixing
Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...
, normally to raise
price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...
s for a commodity above the competitive price level. The loosest form of a price cartel can be recognized in
tacit collusion
Tacit collusion is a collusion between competitors, which do not explicitly exchange information and achieving an agreement about coordination of conduct. There are two types of tacit collusion - concerted action and conscious parallelism. In a ...
(implicit collusion), wherein smaller enterprises individually devise their prices and market shares in response to the same market conditions, without direct communication, resulting in a less competitive outcome. This type of collusion is generally legal and can achieve a monopolistic outcome.
* Quota cartels distribute proportional shares of the market to their members.
* Common sales cartels sell their joint
output
Output may refer to:
* The information produced by a computer, see Input/output
* An output state of a system, see state (computer science)
* Output (economics), the amount of goods and services produced
** Gross output in economics, the value of ...
through a central selling agency (in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
: ''
comptoir''). They are also known as
syndicate
A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest.
Etymology
The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French language, Frenc ...
s (French: ''syndicat industriel'').
* Territorial cartels distribute districts of the market to be used only by individual participants, which act as
monopolist
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
s.
* Submission cartels control offers given to
public tenders
Government procurement or public procurement is the procurement of Good (economics and accounting), goods, Service (economics), services and works on behalf of a public authority, such as a government agency. Amounting to 12 percent of global GD ...
. They use
bid rigging
Bid rigging is a fraudulent scheme in procurement auctions resulting in non-competitive bids and can be performed by corrupt officials, by firms in an orchestrated act of collusion, or between officials and firms. This form of collusion is illegal ...
: bidders for a tender agree on a bid price. They then do not bid in unison, or share the return from the winning bid among themselves.
* Technology and
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
cartels share knowledge about technology or science within themselves while they limit the information from outside individuals.
* Condition cartels unify
contractual term
A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as th ...
s – the modes of
payment
A payment is the voluntary tender of money or its equivalent or of things of value by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods, or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation. The party making the p ...
and delivery, or
warranty
In contract law, a warranty is a promise which is not a condition of the contract or an innominate term: (1) it is a term "not going to the root of the contract",Hogg M. (2011). ''Promises and Contract Law: Comparative Perspectives''p. 48 Cambrid ...
limits.
*
Standardization
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
cartels implement common standards for sold or purchased products. If the members of a cartel produce different sorts or grades of a good, conversion factors are applied to calculate the value of the respective output.
*
Compulsory cartel A compulsory cartel or forced cartel is a cartel that is established or maintained by an administrative order or by a legal directive. The interference of policies on these associations of entrepreneurs of the same trade varied. It ranged from a mer ...
s, also called "forced cartels", are established or maintained by external pressure. Voluntary cartels are formed by the free will of their participants.
Effects
A survey of hundreds of published economic studies and legal decisions of antitrust authorities found that the median price increase achieved by cartels in the last 200 years is about 23 percent. Private international cartels (those with participants from two or more nations) had an average price increase of 28 percent, whereas domestic cartels averaged 18 percent. Less than 10 percent of all cartels in the sample failed to raise market prices.
In general, cartel agreements are economically unstable in that there is an
incentive
In general, incentives are anything that persuade a person to alter their behaviour. It is emphasised that incentives matter by the basic law of economists and the laws of behaviour, which state that higher incentives amount to greater levels of ...
for members to cheat by selling at below the cartel's agreed price or selling more than the cartel's production quotas. Many cartels that attempt to set product prices are unsuccessful in the long term because of cheating punishment mechanisms such as price wars or financial punishment. An empirical study of 20th-century cartels determined that the mean duration of discovered cartels is from 5 to 8 years and overcharged by approximately 32%. This distribution was found to be bimodal, with many cartels breaking up quickly (less than a year), many others lasting between five and ten years, and still some that lasted decades. Within the industries that have operating cartels, the median number of cartel members is 8. Once a cartel is broken, the incentives to form a new cartel return, and the cartel may be re-formed. Publicly known cartels that do not follow this
business cycle
Business cycles are intervals of Economic expansion, expansion followed by recession in economic activity. These changes have implications for the welfare of the broad population as well as for private institutions. Typically business cycles are ...
include, by some accounts, OPEC.
Cartels often practice price fixing internationally. When the agreement to control prices is sanctioned by a multilateral treaty or protected by national sovereignty, no antitrust actions may be initiated. OPEC countries partially control the
price of oil
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Ref ...
, and the
International Air Transport Association
The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...
(IATA) fixes prices for international airline tickets while the organization is excepted from antitrust law.
Organization
Drawing upon research on organizational misconduct, scholars in economics, sociology and management have studied the organization of cartels. They have paid attention to the way cartel participants work together to conceal their activities from antitrust authorities. Even more than reaching efficiency, participating firms need to ensure that their collective secret is maintained.
Cartel theory versus antitrust concept
The scientific analysis of cartels is based on
cartel theory Cartel theory is usually understood as the doctrine of economic cartels. However, since the concept of 'cartel' does not have to be limited to the field of the economy, doctrines on non-economic cartels are conceivable in principle. Such exist alrea ...
. It was pioneered in 1883 by the Austrian economist
Friedrich Kleinwächter and in its early stages was developed mainly by German-speaking scholars. These scholars tended to regard cartels as an acceptable part of the economy. At the same time, American lawyers increasingly turned against
trade restrictions
A trade restriction is an artificial restriction on the trade of goods and/or services between two or more countries. It is the byproduct of protectionism. However, the term is controversial because what one part may see as a trade restriction ...
, including all cartels. The
Sherman act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.
Th ...
, which impeded the formation and activities of cartels, was passed in the United States in 1890. The American viewpoint, supported by activists like
Thurman Arnold
Thurman Wesley Arnold (June 2, 1891 – November 7, 1969) was an American lawyer best known for his trust-busting campaign as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Department of Justice ...
and
Harley M. Kilgore
Harley Martin Kilgore (January 11, 1893 – February 28, 1956) was a United States senator from West Virginia.
Biography
He was born on January 11, 1893, in Brown, West Virginia. He was born to Quimby Hugh Kilgore and Laura Jo Kilgore. His fat ...
, eventually prevailed when governmental policy in Washington could have a larger impact in World War II.
Legislation and penalties
Because cartels are likely to have an impact on market positions, they are subjected to
competition law
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
, which is executed by governmental
competition regulator
A competition regulator is the institution that oversees the functioning of the markets. And the Law in which it takes cognizance of situations having any type of impediments and distortions on the markets and correct them is the competition law ...
s. Very similar regulations apply to
corporate merger
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
s. A single entity that holds a
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
is not considered a cartel but can be sanctioned through other abuses of its monopoly.
Prior to World War II, members of cartels could sign contracts that were enforceable in courts of law except in the United States. Before 1945, cartels were tolerated in Europe and specifically promoted as a business practice in German-speaking countries. In ''U.S. v. National Lead Co. et al.'', the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
noted the testimony of individuals who cited that a cartel, in its versatile form, is
The first legislation against cartels to be enforced was the
Sherman Act 1890
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.
Th ...
, which also prohibits price fixing, market-sharing, output restrictions and other anti-competitive conduct. Section 1 and 2 of the Act outlines the law in regards to cartels,
Section 1:
Every contract, combination in the form of trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.
Section 2:
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100 million if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1 million, or by imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
In practice, detecting and desisting cartels is undertaken through the use of economic analysis and leniency programmes. Economic analysis is implemented to identify any discrepancies in market behaviour between both suspected and unsuspected cartel engaged firms. A structural approach is done in the form of screening already suspicious firms for industry traits of a typical cartel price path. A typical path often includes a formation phase in which prices decline, followed by a transition phase in which prices tend to rise, and end with a stationary phase in which price variance remains low. Indicators such as price changes alongside import rates, market concentration, time period of permanent price changes and stability of companies' market shares are used as economic markers to help supplement the search for cartel behaviour. On the contrary, when aiming to create suspicion around potential cartels, a behavioural approach is often used to identify behavioural collusive patterns, to initiate further economic analysis into identifying and prosecuting those involved in the operations. For example, studies have shown that industries are more likely to experience collusion where there are fewer firms, products are homogeneous and there is a stable demand.
Leniency programmes
Leniency programmes were first introduced in 1978 in the US, before being successfully reformed in 1993. The underlying principle of a leniency program is to offer discretionary penalty reductions for corporations or individuals who are affiliated with cartel operations, in exchange for their cooperation with enforcement authorities in helping to identify and penalise other participating members. According to the Australian Department of Justice, the following 6 conditions must be met for admission into a leniency program:
# The corporation is the first one to come forward and qualify for leniency with respect to the illegal activity being reported;
# The Division, at the time the corporation comes in, does not yet have evidence against the company that is likely to result in a sustainable conviction;
# The corporation, upon its discovery of the illegal activity being reported, took prompt and effective action to terminate its part in the activity;
# The corporation reports the wrongdoing with candor and completeness and provides full, continuing and complete cooperation that advances the Division in its investigation;
# The confession of wrongdoing is truly a corporate act, as opposed to isolated confessions of individual executives or officials;
# Where possible, the corporation makes restitution to injured parties; and
# The Division determines that granting leniency would not be unfair to others, considering the nature of the illegal activity, the confessing corporation's role in it, and when the corporation comes forward.
The application of leniency programme penalties varies according to individual countries policies and are proportional to cartel profits and years of infringement. However, typically the first corporation or individual to cooperate will receive the most reduced penalty in comparison to those who come forward later. The effectiveness of leniency programmes in destabilising and deterring cartels is evidenced by the decreased formation and discovery of cartels in the US since the introduction of the programmes in 1993. Some prosecuted examples include:
*
![The number of cartel discoveries per six-month period in the US](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/The_number_of_cartel_discoveries_per_six-month_period_in_the_US.png)
Lysine
Lysine (symbol Lys or K) is an α-amino acid that is a precursor to many proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated form under biological conditions), an α-carboxylic acid group (which is in the deprotonated −C ...
Cartel: An employee of
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) alerted authorities of the existence of the cartel within the Lysine industry.
* Stainless steel: Buyers of the product complained to the
European Commission (EC) about price spikes.
* Sodium gluconate: Defendants in the lysine case informed authorities of collusive behaviours between corporations in this industry.
Price fixing
Today, price fixing by private entities is illegal under the antitrust laws of more than 140 countries. The commodities of prosecuted international cartels include
lysine
Lysine (symbol Lys or K) is an α-amino acid that is a precursor to many proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated form under biological conditions), an α-carboxylic acid group (which is in the deprotonated −C ...
,
citric acid
Citric acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula HOC(CO2H)(CH2CO2H)2. It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in t ...
,
graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...
electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials de ...
s, and bulk
vitamin
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an Nutrient#Essential nutrients, essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its ...
s. In many countries, the predominant belief is that cartels are contrary to free and fair competition, considered the backbone of political democracy. Maintaining cartels continues to become harder for cartels. Even if international cartels cannot be regulated as a whole by individual nations, their individual activities in domestic markets are affected.
Unlike other cartels, export cartels are legal in virtually all jurisdictions, despite their harmful effects on affected markets.
Examples
![ATF policy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/ATF_policy.jpg)
* The
Phoebus cartel
The Phoebus cartel was an oligopoly that controlled the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs. They appropriated market territories and lowered the useful life of such bulbs. Corporations based in Europe and the United States founded t ...
was established by lighting manufacturers in the early 20th century to control the pricing and lifespan of incandescent light bulbs.
* The
Quinine cartel Quinine Cartel was a cartel regarding price and territory of producers of quinine and quinidine. There were two separate cartels with different members each time.
From the first isolation of quinine as an Active ingredient, API in the year 1792 unt ...
existed among producers of the
anti-malarial drug
Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young c ...
Quinine
Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg cr ...
to control production rates and pricing, operating in the early 20th century with two incarnations. During the early years of its operation, Quinine was the only viable medical treatment for malaria.
* The
British Valve Association
The British Radio and Valve Manufacturers' Association (BVA) was a 20th-century cartel of vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vac ...
existed among British manufacturers of vacuum tubes to regulate the pricing, electrode structure, and part numbering system for its members.
* The
Seven Sisters was the name for the consortium of seven transnational oil companies which dominated the global petroleum industry from the 1940s to the 1970s. The contemporary equivalent is
OPEC
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, ) is a cartel of countries. Founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela), it has, since 1965, been headquart ...
, an international organization of petroleum producing nations that sets production targets and prices among its members.
* The
Swiss Cheese Union
The Swiss Cheese Union (german: Schweizer Käseunion AG, ) was a marketing and trading organization in Switzerland, which from 1914 to 1999 served as a cartel to control cheese production. To this end, the Swiss Cheese Union mandated production be ...
, an industry organization of cheese producers, functioned as a cartel through the extent of its control on cheese production in the 20th century.
* Between 1995 and 2004, several of the largest
elevator
An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...
manufacturers operated a market-rigging cartel, including
ThyssenKrupp
ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is the result of the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and h ...
,
Kone
Kone Oyj (; officially stylized as KONE and trading as KONE Corporation) is an elevator engineering company employing over 60,000 personnel across 60 countries worldwide. It was founded in 1910 and is now headquartered in Espoo near Helsinki, F ...
, and
Otis
Otis may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Characters
* Otis (Superman), in the films ''Superman'' and ''Superman II'' and related DC Comics media
** Otis Graves, in the TV series ''Supergirl''
* Otis (The Walking Dead), Otis (''The Walking Dead' ...
, which were fined by the European Union in 2001.
* The
Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers
The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (french: Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec, FPAQ) is a government-sanctioned private organization that regulates the production and marketing of maple syrup in Quebec. As of 2011, ...
, a government-sanctioned private organization that regulates the production and marketing of
maple syrup
Maple syrup is a syrup made from the sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Maple tree ...
in Quebec.
See also
*
Cartel seat (monument)
Cartel seats as monuments were the headquarters or other premises of historical, no longer existing cartels in the sense of a group of cooperating, but potentially also rival enterprises. Often, these associations had been syndicate cartels being ...
*
Drug cartel
A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the ...
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Industrial organisation
In economics, industrial organization is a field that builds on the theory of the firm by examining the structure of (and, therefore, the boundaries between) firms and markets. Industrial organization adds real-world complications to the perfe ...
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Corporate group
A corporate group or group of companies is a collection of parent and subsidiary corporations that function as a single economic entity through a common source of control. These types of groups are often managed by an account manager. The concep ...
Bibliography
* Connor, John M.:
Private international cartels. Effectiveness, welfare, and anti-cartel enforcement'. Purdue University.
West Lafayette
West Lafayette () is a city in Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, about northwest of the state capital of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette is directly across the Wabash River from its sister c ...
, Indiana 2003.
* Fear, Jeffrey R.: ''Cartels''. In: Geoffrey Jones; Jonathan Zeitlin (ed.): The Oxford handbook of business history. Oxford: Univ. Press, 2007, p. 268–293.
* Freyer, Tony A.: ''Antitrust and global capitalism 1930–2004'', New York 2006.
* Hexner, Ervin, ''The International Steel Cartel'', Chapel Hill 1943.
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Kleinwächter, Friedrich, ''Die Kartelle. Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Organization der Volkswirtschaft'', Innsbruck 1883.
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Leonhardt, Holm Arno: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013.
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Leonhardt, Holm Arno: ''The development of cartel+ theory between 1883 and the 1930s – from international diversity to convergence: syndicats industriels, ententes, comptoirs, trusts, pools, combinations, associations, kartells, cartelle, Unternehmerverbände''. Hildesheim 2018
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Levenstein, Margaret C. and Valerie Y. Suslow. "What Determines Cartel Success?" ''Journal of Economic Literature'' 64 (March 2006): 43–95.
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Liefmann, Robert: ''Cartels, Concerns and Trusts'', Ontario 2001
ondon 1932* Martyniszyn, Marek, "Export Cartels: Is it Legal to Target Your Neighbour? Analysis in Light of Recent Case Law", ''Journal of International Economic Law'' 15 (1) (2012): 181–222.
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Stigler, George J.: ''The extent and bases of monopoly''. In: ''The American economic review'', Vol. 32 (1942), pp. 1–22.
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Stocking, George W. and Myron W. Watkins: ''Cartels in Action''. New York: Twentieth Century Fund (1946).
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Stocking, George W. and Myron W. Watkins: ''Cartels or competition? The economics of international controls by business and government''. New York: Twentieth Century Fund 1948.
* Strieder, Jakob: ''Studien zur Geschichte kapitalistischer Organizationsformen. Monopole, Kartelle und Aktiengesellschaften im Mittelalter und zu Beginn der Neuzeit''. München 1925.
* Wells, Wyatt C.: ''Antitrust and the Formation of the Postwar World'', New York 2002.
References
External links
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Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
BBC on cartels
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Commercial crimes
Anti-competitive practices
Imperfect competition