Introduction to Symposium on Tacit Collusion

• Author: Jonathan B. Baker
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X9303800101
• Published date: 01 March 1993
• Date: 01 March 1993
• Subject Matter: Article

The Antitrust Bulletin/Spring 1993

Introduction to symposium

on tacit collusion

BY JONATHAN B. BAKER*

1

The four articles in this symposium address antitrust's longstand-

ing and important problem

of

identifying and proving tacit collu-

sion among horizontal competitors under Sherman Act §1.1The

questions raised are hardy perennials: Should tacit collusion vio-

late

the

Sherman

Act? When may

courts

infer

an

agreement

among competitors to fix price from circumstantial evidence

of

parallel pricing? Do the legal standards for inferring ahorizontal

agreement from circumstantial evidence properly reflect the con-

temporary economic understanding

of

coordinated behaviort-Yet

it is timely to revisit these topics because

of

the recent attention

given them by state and federal enforcers.t and because recent

* Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for

Economics, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The views expressed in this introduction are not neces-

sarily those

of

the United States Department

of

Justice.

15 U.S.C. §1 (1988).

2See, e.g., In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum

Prods. Antitrust Litig., 906 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1990), cert, denied.

III

S.Ct. 2274 (1991) (consolidated proceeding involving suits brought by

several states); American Home Products Corp., 5Trade Reg. Rep.

e1993 by Federal Legal Publications. Inc.