allocating customers

the worst ant-trust offenses are cartel violations, price fixing, bid rigging & customer allocation. price fixing is when 2 plus competing sellers agree on what prices to charge, ex: by agreeing that they will increase prices a certain amount or that they won’t sell below a certain price. bid rigging is when 2 plus firms agree to bid in such a way that a designated firm submits the winning bid, typ for local, state or fed gov contracts.

customer-allocation agreements involve some arrangement between compet-tors to split up customers, such as by geographic area, to reduce or eliminate compet-tion. such price-fixing, bid-rigging & customer-allocation agreements, unlike joint research agreements for ex, provide no plausible offsetting benefits to consumers. these agreements are generally secret, & the partic-p-nts mislead & defraud customers by continuing to hold themselves out as compet-tors despite their agreement not to compete.
price fixing, bid rigging & customer allocation harm consumers & taxpayers by causing them to pay more for products & services & by depriving them of other byproducts of true compet-tion. nor is there usually any question in the minds of violators that their conduct is unlawful. such practices raise the price of a product or service by more than 10 %, sometimes much more, & that amer consumers & taxpayers pour billions of $ each yr into the pockets of cartel members. people who take consumer & taxpayer $ this way are thieves.
minneapolis packaged-ice company executives plead guilty to customer allocation conspiracy involving the allocating customers