alt Hacker NewsPrice fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the UK it is called "price match" and eg. if supermarket says they keep prices matched to their competitor. No regulator raises an eyebrow.
So here Samsung and SK Hynix could say they price match to Micron and they are in the clear.
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>Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the UK it is called "price match" and eg. if supermarket says they keep prices matched to their competitor. No regulator raises an eyebrow.
No, the key term is "collusion", which could be done in the open or not. If a competitor told you they were unilaterally raising prices in secret, that would still be legal. Where you get into trouble is if you are cooperating to set prices. And no, this is all determined by a judge so cute workarounds like "I'm telling my competitors that I'm raising prices then gauging his body language" won't work.
That is not what price fixing actually is. In the UK "price matching" is a one-to-many relationship meaning that the price of goods is set to the "lowest available"
Price fixing is a many-to-one all the manufactures agree to the highest prices they all agree on and set it there.
Price match creates downward pressure, nobody is gonna sue over lower prices.
This is like if you showed a supermarket that their competitor's oranges were more expensive, and they "matched" by raising their prices for everyone.
> Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open.
In the U.S., competitors are allowed to act in similar ways in response to economic realities, as long as they each arrive at that decision independently. But publicly anchoring your price to a competitor’s is potentially illegal.
> Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, orinferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels.
[Emphasis added]
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...