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, 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, 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.
Guilds in the European
Middle Ages, 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 and
Naples, or the
Alaun
An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula , where is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium. By itself, "alum" often refers to potassium alum, with the ...
cartel of 1470 between the
Papal State and Naples. Both unions had common sales organizations for overall production called the ''Societas Communis Vendicionis'' ('Common Sales Society').
Laissez-faire (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 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 hereditar ...
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 1 ...
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 one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...
. They became the leading form of
market organization, particularly in Europe and Japan. In the 1930s, authoritarian regimes such as
Nazi Germany, Italy under
Mussolini, 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 re ...
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 and relative tolerance of cartels. During
World War II, 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 libert ...
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, normally to raise
prices 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
syndicates (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. 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 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 t ...
s – the modes of
payment and delivery, or
warranty 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 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 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 measured by examin ...
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, 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 a ...
, 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.
T ...
, 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 Justic ...
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 fa ...
, 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 ...
, 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 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 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, 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:
*
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 −CO ...
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 −CO ...
,
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 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
vitamins. 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
* 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
Quinidine is a class IA antiarrhythmic agent used to treat heart rhythm disturbances. It is the enantiomer of antimalarial agent quinine, originall ...
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 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, 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 b ...
, 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 manufacturers operated a market-rigging cartel, including
ThyssenKrupp,
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, ...
, 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''), in the Image Comics ...
, 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, t ...
, 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 tre ...
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 l ...
*
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 per ...
*
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 concept ...
Bibliography
* Connor, John M.:
Private international cartels. Effectiveness, welfare, and anti-cartel enforcement'. Purdue University.
West Lafayette, 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.
*
Kleinwächter, Friedrich, ''Die Kartelle. Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Organization der Volkswirtschaft'', Innsbruck 1883.
*
Leonhardt, Holm Arno: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013.
*
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
Einloggen , Hildesheimer Beiträge zu Theologie und Geschichte
*
Levenstein, Margaret C. and Valerie Y. Suslow. "What Determines Cartel Success?" ''Journal of Economic Literature'' 64 (March 2006): 43–95.
*
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.
*
Stigler, George J.: ''The extent and bases of monopoly''. In: ''The American economic review'', Vol. 32 (1942), pp. 1–22.
*
Stocking, George W. and Myron W. Watkins: ''Cartels in Action''. New York: Twentieth Century Fund (1946).
*
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
Price-Fixing Overchargesfrom
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 mon ...
BBC on cartels
{{Authority control
Commercial crimes
Anti-competitive practices
Imperfect competition