Combination of Firms Crossword Clue

Combination of Firms crossword clue. A crossword question in quick one Courier Mail crossword on Saturday, 24 June 2017. 6 letters. Also appear in Daily Telegraph.

Answer: CARTEL

A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices. Cartels typically control selling prices, but some are organized to control the prices of purchased inputs. Antitrust laws forbid cartels; however, they continue to exist nationally and internationally, openly and secretly, formally and informally.

Note that a single entity that holds a monopoly by this definition cannot be a cartel, though it may be guilty of abusing said monopoly in other ways. Cartels usually occur in oligopolies, where there are a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Bid rigging is a special type of cartel.