Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
However, "convince the public that they should pay more" is not a valid reason for collusion, especially when the public statements kept saying "it's not about our profits; it's about people not paying enough, because then they don't value all our hard work."
Businesses are not allowed to break laws to get people to "value their work." And if the problem was "Amazon was dominating the industry! We needed to stop them!" the solution was simple... stop selling to Amazon, and support other retailers.
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The various US domestic Airlines routinely raise prices on specific routes almost in lockstep. *Almost*. The way they do it is one will raise prices (usually claiming higher fuel costs) and over the next few days the rest will match. They get away with it because they also *lower* prices that way; one will drop the rate and the rest will match. And because every once in a while one or more airlines *refuse* to raise the price, which forces the others the cancel the increase.
Consumers and regulators are thus reassured that pricing changes are independently set.
Note that, for now at least, RANDOM HOUSE gets to keep their agency model distribution unchallenged because *they* wisely distanced themselves from the conspiracy and adopted it later, independently. At a minimum, *their* lawyers knew how to avoid the *appearance* of lawbreaking.
