Buyer Cartels: Defining Appropriate Competition Policy

Buyer power issues are of increasing concern for competition law and policy. This includes buyer cartels. It is important to distinguish cartels from legitimate buying groups although the later can also cause competitive harms. Buyer cartels are not the mirror image of seller cartels because buyer power arises from smaller market shares, buyers have less incentive to defect from a buyer cartel, such cartels can include more participants, and they can employ tacit collusion more readily. Under mo