The Flat Forbidden Muli-National GAS Price Communications At Issue Morse code is a type of character encoding that transmits information using rhythm. Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals … and special characters of a given message. Not unlike Morse code, in which no oral communications modes are used, the following main rival price signals and corresponding rival moves key in on this universal price wrong by contract or “rival price agreement” reality: “If a firm [signs, i.e.,] raises price in the expectation that its competitors will do likewise, and they do, the firm‟s [sign lingo] behavior can be [and is] conceptualized as the offer of a unilateral contract that the offerees accept by raising their prices.”1 The [fake] dilemma in the treatment of conscious[ly calculated rival price lock and move in concert] parallelism is often posed by some version of the following hypothetical2: There are four … [big firm oil] gas stations at the same street corner [or on the same street or block] …. Without a [cost] … price increase, one … [COO] decides to raise his prices in the hope that the others will follow [up]. When the first mover [communicates and] posts the new prices, his rivals [identify, by checking up staff contractors] … the- … opportunity to increase … the old price [in concert]. [E]ach [rival] decides [to depart from independent price decisions and] to match the price increase … to enhance … profit. The [rivals, in concert] … have achieved a noncompetitive price by a series of [calculated price alignments and] consciously parallel [anti-cost pricing] … decisions.3 Some of the reality nonverbal communication sequences employed are as follows: A) B) C) Watching to see what number sequences are being communicated; 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 cent block moves, in different-defined combinations; & The rapidity, frequency &/or delay in responsive communication time. Prosigns for Morse code4 Character(s) Up 6 not 2 O.K. Wait or Hold Invitation to lift Error Round Up to 4, not 1 Code Character(s) Down Only 2 not 4 O.K Understood Starting Signal Lift Up - Understood Agreed By Skipping One Code
From the hard objective price data, extracting exactly what each billion dollar company‟s forbidden and not confidential pricing policies are is super easy & boring to me.
1 2
In re High Fructose Corn Syrup Antitrust Litig., 295 F.3d 651, 654 (7th Cir. 2002) (Posner, J.) HERBERT HOVENKAMP, THE ANTITRUST ENTERPRISE: PRINCIPLE AND EXECUTION 128 (2005); Dennis W. Carlton, Robert H. Gertner & Andrew M. Rosenfield, Communication Among Competitors: Game Theory & Antitrust, 5 GEO. MASON L. REV. 423, 428–29 („97); George A. Hay, Facilitating Practices: The Ethyl Case, in THE ANTITRUST REVOLUTION 182 (John E. Kwoka Jr. & Lawrence J. White eds., 3d ed. 1999); William H. Page, Communication and Concerted Action, 37 LOYOLA U. CHI. L.J. 405, 411–12 (2007). 3 http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/at-source/09/02/Feb09-Page2-26f.pdf 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code#Letters.2C_numbers.2C_punctuation
A D economist can‟t opine on it, as the disgraced Ken Elzinga correctly noted, verbatim: Q. I'm not talking about inferences. I'm talking about actually knowing what their margins were. That would be very suggestive to you as an economist, would it not? Suggestive of what? Suggestive that they were exchanging information that they shouldn't be exchanging under the antitrust law. Well, I can't opine on that as an attorney as to whether that's illegal or not, but I could restrain my enthusiasm for companies exchanging data on margins, yes.5
A. Q. A.
Well, I can opine on all of it, as an economist and an attorney, with impervious objective proof.
5
K O Elzinga, on trial at page 4168:25-4169:5.