International Cartels

International cartels are powerful organizations that impact our everyday lives, although they are little known. This book presents 15 historical case studies of international cartels that include agricultural and mineral commodities, the machinery industry, telephone equipment, whiskey and cement. These cases reveal that international cartels manipulated prices and shared markets over many decades but that their real impact was far wider. The global convergence towards criminalizing serious cartel conduct has seen a revival in historical research on cartels and competition policy. The regulation of anti-competitive behaviour has changed over time. To understand why the US, European and other modern economies altered their policies through the 20th century, it is critical to understand when, how and why governments have interacted with, and been influenced by, business organizations such as cartels. This volume draws together researchers from different nations to examine the impact of international cartels on the experience of individual nations, those nations’ interactions with one or more international cartels, and ultimately the interactions of individual nations with the wider international community. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics and advanced students in the fields of business and economic history, political economy, and government policy, as well as those interested in cartels and their impact on the wider economy.

The Political Economy of International Commodity Cartels examines how international commodity cartels in the 1930s were impacted not only by commercial rivalry, but also by international trade political and diplomatic concerns. This work presents the rise and decline of the European Timber Exporters’ Convention (ETEC) and analyses how firms navigated through the cartel game under increasing international competition, pressures from the national governments, and the interventionist endeavours of the League of Nations. Cartels are often associated with, in the standard economic interpretation, business collusion. However, in using vast archive sources and historical methodology, the chapters in this book shed light onto how international relations shaped cartels. The rise of British protectionism, the emergence of the Soviet Union as an industrial power, and the economic rapprochement of the League of Nations in the early 1930s created a wave of political and diplomatic challenges in the timber trading countries and affected cartelisation. Timber firms in the biggest producer countries—Finland and Sweden—were uninterested in international cartel collaboration, but under pressure joined the ETEC nevertheless. This book makes a strong contribution to the fields of business history and cartel studies. It is an essential read for economic historians interested in how political pressure shaped international cartels and how cartels became avenues of diplomacy.

Cartel issues arise in a variety of settings and industries and increasingly without regard to jurisdictional boundaries. Many jurisdictions have granted their competition authorities broad jurisdictional reach and provided them with aggressive investigative tools, such as wiretap authority and compulsory process. There is also a burgeoning movement to criminalize cartel activity in places where it has previously been regarded as wholly or principally a civil or administrative matter. And the global proliferation of leniency programs continues to radically destabilize cartels, creating powerful incentives for institutions to turn against their co-conspirators.This first edition of the International Antitrust Cartel Handbook is a vital reference for both new and experienced antitrust practitioners navigating the increasingly complex global cartel enforcement environment. It brings together leading cartel practitioners from around the world to address the critical issues that arise throughout the lifecycle of a cartel investigation and prosecution. The Handbook provides both breadth of coverage and analytical depth suitable for a wide range of practitioners, including everyone from those who may find themselves on the front line of a government inquiry or internal investigation; to those awaiting their day in court to contest a criminal indictment; to those simply preparing to counsel a client on the basic "dos and don'ts" of engaging with competitors.