Review of “Export Cartels”—Report of the Committee of Experts on Restrictive Business Practices. Oecd 1974

• Published date: 01 June 1976
• Date: 01 June 1976
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X7602100206
• Subject Matter: Article

REVIEW OF "EXPORT CARTELS"-REPORT OF THE

COMMITTEE OF

EXPERTS

ON

RESTRICTIVE

BUSINESS

PRACTICES. OECD 1974

by

J.

D.

GRIBBIN*

This

report

by the OECD

Experts,

the fifth concerned

with a specific restrictive business practice, is particularly

valuable for the light which

it

throws, even if imperfectly,

on an issue which was important

prewar

and in postwar

reconstruction, and has become even more so as increasing

attention is devoted to the

trade

and development problems

of developing countries.

During World

War

II

the United

States

Government

began to look

at

international cartels from two points of

view: first, how they might have reduced the U.S. military

capability, and second, their function,

if

any, in the post-

war

world committed to peaceful expansion of the living

standards

of aU people. Studies in

antitrust

aspects were

undertaken in the Department of Justice under Corwin D.

Edwards, and published in

part

in 1944 in "Economic and

Political Aspects of International Cartels," by the Subcom-

mittee on

War

Mobilization of the Committee on Military

Affairs of the U.S. Senate.

Further

material was made

available in his "International Cartels as Obstacles to Inter-

national

Trade"

(AER

Supplement, March 1944). This in-

dicated the existence of 179 such cartels, 133 in manufactured

products, and 109 in which U.S. enterprises participated.

On the policy issues Secretary of

State

Cordell Hull, in

September 1944, revealed in a letter to President Roosevelt

that

an inter-departmental committee had, for more

than

ayear, been considering cartel practices and related

matters

which restricted the free flow of commerce. Subsequently

proposals were

prepared

for

discussion within the United

•Senior Economic Adviser of the United Kingdom's

Office

of

Fair

Trading.

341