Cartel Management Services

Cartel management services are intermediaries that coordinate competitors’ pricing through centralized software. Our comparative analysis of US and EU law argues that algorithmic cartel management falls squarely within established and commonly held antitrust principles. Existing U.S. and E.U. antitrust doctrine already condemns such arrangements when they substitute coordinated implementation for independent decision-making.  The most serious issue is determining when a practice moves from non-coercive exchange of information to actual coordination. The Article develops a functional framework distinguishing lawful information provision from unlawful cartel administration, centered on whether intermediaries operationalize coordination through delegation, defaults, monitoring, or compliance inducements.

Read the full piece at SSRN.