Loose Lips: The Danger Of Sharing Competitive Information With Competitors

Keywords: competition, antitrust, FTC, Federal Trade Commission,

Increasing prices can be stressful for manufacturers as they consider such questions as: What is the proper price point? How will customers react? What will the competition do? In addition to these issues, manufacturers considering a price increase should also be concerned with antitrust best practices.

There are many well-recognized business reasons to raise prices: increased demand, rising costs, or finding it profitable to follow the price increase of a larger competitor. However, regardless of the intentions, improper communications, suspicious meetings, or the mere presence of executives at trade association meetings around the time of a price increase can give rise to antitrust scrutiny.¹