of anticompetitive practices. For example, it is illegal for competitors to form a cartel to collude to make

pricing and output decisions, as if they were a monopoly firm. The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S.

Department of Justice prohibit firms from agreeing to fix prices or output, rigging bids, or sharing or dividing

markets by allocating customers, suppliers, territories, or lines of commerce.

In the late 1990s, for example, the antitrust regulators prosecuted an international cartel of vitamin

manufacturers, including the Swiss firm Hoffman-La Roche, the German firm BASF, and the French firm

Rhone-Poulenc. These firms reached agreements on how much to produce, how much to charge, and which

firm would sell to which customers. Firms like General Mills, Kellogg, Purina Mills, and Proctor and Gamble

bought the high-priced vitamins, which pushed up the prices more. Hoffman-La Roche pleaded guilty in May
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