the detergent makers wanted ‘to limit the intensity of the competition between them and clean up the market.’

Nevertheless, by the early 1990s, a price war had broken out among them.” During the soap executives’ meetings,

sometimes lasting more than four hours, the companies established complex pricing structures. “One [soap]

executive recalled ‘chaotic’ meetings as each side tried to work out how the other had bent the rules.” Like many

cartels, the soap cartel disintegrated due to the very strong temptation for each member to maximize its own

individual profits.

How did this soap opera end? After an investigation, French antitrust authorities fined Colgate-Palmolive, Henkel,

and Proctor & Gamble a total of €361 million ($484 million). A similar fate befell the icemakers. Bagged ice is a
{"file_type": ".pdf", "title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "batch_upload": true, "total_pages": 597, "source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a", "creator": "PDFMiner", "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:37:44.339247", "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00", "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00", "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "file_size_mb": 26.99}