Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Discussing Pricing with competitor is illegal

Does this seem wierd to you? Doesn't everyone base their pricing somewhat on what their competitors are doing? If i'm charging $50/h for something everyone else is charging $20/h for... wouldn't I notice an impact to my business pretty quickly?

Isn't one of the first things you do when entering a new vertical or thinking about launching a promotion or a product... don't you look at what the general price points are?

Apparently you're breaking the law... well in the US anyway.... not sure what the deal is in Canada... are we this strict in our anti-trust laws?

HWG Pricing FAQ - The HTML Writers Guild: "Is it illegal to discuss pricing?

The short answer: YES (at least in the U.S. where many of our members are).

The U.S. law specifically makes discussion of pricing between competitors (all or some) a federal offense. According to either Marshall Kragen or Lewis Rose (both practicing lawyers), several brokers in DC were successfully prosecuted for simply discussing an increase of fees at a dinner meeting.

When, where, or how doesn't matter. Any discussion of pricing by a group of people within the same industry is illegal in the U.S. The feds call it price fixing.

For additional information on the legal aspects of price fixing, please visit the following locations:

* Antitrust Policy
* United States DOJ - Antitrust Division

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