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Originally Posted by avantman42
That's what I thought, thanks. Just to clarify, usually "harm" is considered to be all about prices (higher prices equal harm, lower prices equal no harm). Does the law allow for other harms to be considered? For example, if prices stayed the same, but quality suffered, would that be grounds for anti-trust action?
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Quality is not an objectively measurable issue so it would be hard to argue antitrust on those grounds.
But quantity of supply is measurable and actionable.
In fact, the current news cycle features exactly that kind of case: US airlines are under investigation for suspicion of coordinating to restrict seating capacity to maintain high margins. Pricing isn't the direct harm, but rather inconvenience is. And availability.
Airlines are currently operating at historically high occupancy rates, well above previous boom eras, when they would typically move to larger craft or add flights to try to capture traffic, moves that would trade lower margins for higher revenues. Instead, they are boosting margins by (essentially) refusing to meet demand.
Nothing wrong there by itself, but if they are coordinating to do it...
And since they are all doing it and nobody is actively trying to grow their share...
And they all speak of "capacity discipline"...
...it is suspicious.
Hence the investigation.
But since the airline execs aren't idiots it is going to be hard to prove.
It is unlikely the feds will find company-to-company emails showing clear coordination (as they did in the Apple ebook case) but it is somewhat possible they find internal memos discussing an ongoing "gentlemen's agreement" among the companies (as they did in the other Apple antitrust case, the conspiracy to depress employee salaries by limiting mobility).
The likeliest outcome is that the airlines will each grow capacity by ten percent or less and then claim they are growing capacity but only as the market demands it.
Going to be a tricky case.
The airlines have a long history of coordinating indirectly via otherwise innocuous public statements and actions so proving coordination is almost impossible.
Unlike other industries that help out by bragging about it.