What Is Illegal Conduct Of Basic Issues Of Antitrust Policy?
Some of earliest antitrust decisions concerned illegal behaviour. The courts have rules that certain kinds of collusive behaviour are illegal per se; there is simply no defence that will justify these actions. The offenders cannot defend themselves by pointing to some worthy objective or mitigating circumstances. The most important class of per se illegal conduct is agreements among competing firms to fix prices, restrict output, or divide markets. Even the severest critics of antitrust policy can find no redeeming virtue in price fixing. Antitrust laws also limit other forms of conduct. These includes: 1. Predatory pricing, in which a firm sells its goods for less than production costs. The argument against predatory pricing is that a big company can use its financial resources to cut prices and drive smaller rivals out of business, and then it can jack up prices. 2. Trying contracts of arrangements, whereby a firm will sell product A only if the purchaser buys product B. 3. Price dis
