I thought that was more about noncompete collusion, but i could be thinking of another industry maladaption.
It was mainly about no cold calling, which is a kind of price setting, as it artifically impedes competition. (And that is only what was prosecutedā¦)
Iām not saying it is exactly the same thing, I was adding an example to pulsnās statement that the tech companies do it, and example of Business As Usual beingā¦dodgy
Manufacturers do not protect small independent retailers out of altruism. They do have a real business interest in there being substantial competition between the retailers that sell their products because once a retailer or even a very small group of retailers take over the market they gain pricing power over the manufacturers and then the retailers margins go up and the manufacturers margins go down even if the price remains the same for the consumer. So as long as there is a substantial volume of sales through the independents the big retailers have to respect the manufacturers terms on pricing and availability.
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In the UK, the the CMA recently fined Roland over Ā£4m and Korg Ā£1.5m for RPM (Resale Price Maintenance), AKA price fixing.
The CMA have previously fined Fender Ā£4.5m fine and Casio Ā£3.7m for RPM.
The retailer GAK were fined Ā£250,000, increased by 15% due to continuing the practice after receiving a warning from the CMA. In this case, Yamaha received immunity for bringing the case to the CMAās attention.
It seems that Thomann has been convicted for price agreements with other sellers, and has been fined. (It seems that this is old news - 1 year - not sure if it has been postet before.)
I think it was pretty obvious anyway - but its good that there is some competition again.
I think (and I hope this is not OT) that price agreement is a feature of_all_ industries at present. The real news here is that at least one nation actually used the law and did something about it.
In a neo-liberal global economy world, price agreement is what the market demands
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I think the term āfraudā is is a bit strong. The German anti-trust authority talks about a form of price-fixing among actors, ie agreeing with manufacturers not to go below a certain thresholdā¦ Economically, this what one would expect in an oligopoly with a limited number of dominant actors (in this case Thomann and MusicStore).
I personally do not think this is the main problem in music device distribution. I find it much more problematic that independent sellers have an extremely hard time competing with Thomann and MusicStore. But this is not at all addressed as an issue hereā¦
Edit: Good that this was moved into the correct track. I tried to explain the case in some posts aboveā¦
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How do the 21 million help users who overpaid?
They donāt, probably.
A shame, really.
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