Regulations on unfair trade practices (Concerted refusal to trade)
When competitive companies jointly refuse a transaction with a certain company and they ask a third party to deny the trade with the company, this act is called a "concerted refusal to deal."
As you can see in the above illustration, if multiple manufacturers that compete with each other jointly decided not to supply a product to a retailer that sold the product at a low price (because they wanted to sell their products at a high price), the retailer would be forced out of the market.
Consumers would then have no choice but to buy the product at a high price, because the discounter would have gone out of business. This setting would decrease consumers' benefits. Such concerted refusal to deal is prohibited as an unfair trade practice.
Unfair trade practice means acts: one that reduces free competition, another that is unfair as a means of competition, or the other that infringes the basis for free competition. These acts are prohibited under the Antimonopoly Act.
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