Bid rigging: This is when two or more parties collude to decide who will win a contract. Here, the parties that ‘lose’ the bid will purposefully make lower bids, thus allowing the winner to secure the deal. In the US, this is a felony and can lead to jail time.
Price fixing: This is when the price of a particular product or a service is determined by a business, rather than through the fair impact of market forces. In order for a price to be fixed, you would expect to see either one very powerful company which dominates the market, or smaller companies coming together to fix the price.
Monopolies: A monopoly is when a particular area of commerce is dominated by one firm, allowing them to exert such influence and power within that area that the consumer suffers.
A recent case that is often referenced in Antitrust is Microsoft, who were found guilty of being anti-competitive through forcing the use of its proprietary web browser on the computers that used Microsoft Windows.
What do antitrust lawyers do?
An antitrust lawyer will perform a variety of roles and tasks. Examples include:
– Negotiating clearance for M&A
– Advise on agreements made to ensure that competition challenges will not yield results
– Defend, or levy, claims in the Competition Appeal Tribunal
– Advise on cross-border trade: this is relevant if you have great commercial awareness and a desire to push your career in both the commercial and antitrust spaces
– Deal with investigations into your clients
– Advise on anti-dumping measures (which prevent a company from exporting products for less than they would sell in the home market)
– Take a regulatory role, where you investigate companies and advise on new laws and regulations