AI and Interdependent Pricing: Combination Without Conspiracy?
Competition: The Journal of the Antitrust, UCL and Privacy Section
19 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2020 Last revised: 12 Oct 2020
Date Written: August 1, 2020
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds the potential to enhance the ability of competitors to coordinate prices without forming agreements. That could cause widespread market failures. Competitors in a broad range of industries could use AI to cause the same harms brought about horizontal price fixing without triggering legal liability. This Article suggests a solution to this potential problem: adopting the long-contemplated policy of imposing civil liability when competitors achieve supracompetitive prices regardless of whether they enter an agreement to do so.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Antitrust,Technology, Conspiracy, Price Fixing, Parallel Pricing
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