Workplace Ethics Training - Anti-Trust Law

A common workplace ethical and legal violation is the breaching of anti-trust laws.  These transgressions occur when employees collude with competitors to fix prices, rig the bidding process, divide geographical territories, or to regulate other business practices at the expense of the consumer. Violating Anti-Trust laws is a crime that could result in fines, civil lawsuits and even prison terms.  Workplace ethics training programs should spend an appropriate amount of time making sure their employees understand the law.

Some examples of anti-trust violations are:

1. Colluding with a competitor to fix or rig bids. This means that 2 or more competing companies get together to decide what price to bid on projects and what price will win specific bids. This allows organizations to keep prices high at the expense of the consumer who would have benefited from a competitive bidding process.  Rather than competing fairly, these businesses decide the winning bids and split customers between themselves.

2. Colluding with competitors to set prices. Under this scenario, competing businesses agree to charge an exact price for similar products or services.  This type of collusion keeps prices unnaturally high for consumers because it takes the competition away from the marketplace, prices are inflated to unnatural levels.  

3. Dividing territories between competitors. When companies agree to divide geographic territories, it once again keeps prices high.  This keeps natural competition away from entire regions and leaves consumers with only one choice for a product or service.  This unnatural scenario keeps prices unnaturally high and is unfair to customers in these regions.

Training your employees on the specific legal details for anti-trust is a crucial part of workplace ethics and legal training in the workplace.