Cartels & Antitrust Portrayed: Private International Cartels from 1990 to 2008

Abstract

The purpose of the following charts is to illustrate the size and economic impacts of the modern international cartel movement and the enforcement responses of the world’s antitrust authorities and national courts. These illustrations may serve heuristic purposes or show empirical regularities that suggest hypotheses worthy of testing in future research.

• The data employed encompass 516 private hard‐core cartels that were subject to government or private legal actions (i.e., formal investigations, damages suits, fines, or consent decrees) between January 1990 and December 2008. Each cartel had participants with headquarters in two or more nations.

• All monetary data are expressed in nominal U.S. dollars using exchange rates during the cartel’s life or on the day a legal action was announced.

• A special effort is made to create charts that illustrate trends in cartel dimensions and antitrust decisions.

Keywords: Antitrust, Cartel, competition policy