What is a Cartel?
A cartel is a group of people, organizations, or companies which cooperates together to control production, marketing, and pricing of a product. Under antitrust laws in many regions of the world, cartels are explicitly illegal, because they eliminate fair market competition. However, several international cartels continue to exist despite these laws, and within nations, private cartels may secretly control the market for certain commodities. For the members of a cartel, cooperating together has a distinct advantage. By agreeing to not compete, the members of the cartel mutually benefit. Cartels are often successful in driving the price of the commodity they control up well beyond what could be considered the fair market value. A classic example of an international cartel is the De Beers diamond company, which controls the market for diamonds around the world, causing an artificially inflated price. De Beers has been criticized for its practices, and several governments have attempted t
In its simplest terms, a cartel is an agreement between businesses not to compete with each other. The agreement is usually secret, verbal and often informal. Typically, cartel members may agree on: • prices • output levels • discounts • credit terms • which customers they will supply • which areas they will supply • who should win a contract (bid rigging). Each of the above types of agreement is prohibited by the Competition Act and Article 81 of the EC Treaty. In addition, the Enterprise Act makes it a criminal offence for individuals to dishonestly take part in certain specified cartels, essentially those that involve price fixing, market sharing, limitation of production or supply or bid rigging. Cartels can occur in almost any industry and can involve goods or services at the manufacturing, distribution or retail level. Some sectors are more susceptible to cartels than others because of the structure or the way in which they operate. For example, where: • there are few competitors
A cartel is a poster advertising a bullfight but also refers to the collection of matadors or novilleros who will appear. Normally there are three matadors or novilleros who will fight two bulls each. The most senior will appear at the top of the list and will fight the first and third bulls. The second-most senior appears second and fights the second and fifth bull and the junior appears bottom of the list and fights the third and sixth bull. Seniority is decided by the date when a matador took the alternativa, or when a novillero first fought in a novillada with picadors. If only two matadors or novilleros are appearing, it is known as a “mano a mano” (hand to hand) and they will fight three bulls each. Occasionally a matador or novillero will appear alone (en solitario/unica espada) and fight all six bulls. If there is a combination of matadors and novilleros or rejoneadors on the same cartel it is known as a “corrida mixta” (mixed corrida). Some carteles announce a string of bullfi
