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dcrazytoday at 4:01 PM1 replyview on HN

Yes, the gas station example is directly cited in the article I linked to. It’s legal for a gas station owner, with knowledge and consideration of a competitor’s price, to reduce their price to the same or just below. What is illegal is for nominally-competing gas station owners in an area to conspire to keep their prices within a range of each other’s, even without explicit agreement.


Replies

bryanlarsentoday at 6:58 PM

The article you linked seems to indicate that there has to be active communication between the gas station owners for there to be collusion.

When I worked at a gas station as a teenager there was definitely an unspoken implicit agreement that the price of gas would be 6 cents/liter above wholesale IIRC. Which was highly competitive and didn't completely cover costs.