Cartel Indicators

Abstract

The term cartel meaning “written challenge” originates from medieval French word “Cartel”, from Italian “Cartello”, from Latin “Carta” i.e. card. It came to mean “written agreement between challengers” in 1692 and the term acquired sense of “a commercial trust” in 1902 via German word “Kartell”. It is interesting to point out that the term ‘cartel’ itself is not a legally defined term either in EU or in US and in other competition regimes, it is generally covered through various expressions/terms inter alia ‘concerted practices’, ‘conspiracy’ ‘prohibited agreements’. However, interestingly, in India the term has been incorporated as part of law through the Competition Amendment Act, 2007 and is defined as: "cartel" includes an association of producers, sellers, distributors, traders or service providers who, by agreement amongst themselves, limit, control or attempt to control the production, distribution, sale or price of, or, trade in goods or provision of services.