> So if all the gas stations in the country said they would charge $6/gallon that would be price fixing. If all the consumers said they wouldn't pay more than $1.50/gallon then that's not price-fixing in the same sense.
That's probably true with those examples, but antitrust law tends to ignore large groups of individuals "colluding" in their personal retail purchases. Companies that together exert significant market power get more scrutiny, though; for example, if all the gas-station owners in Texas got together and said that they wouldn't pay more than $1.50/gallon wholesale for gas from refineries, that could be a Sherman Act violation. There have been a few cases about "group boycotts" as well; whereas consumers can organize boycotts for political or personal or whatever reasons, groups of companies organizing boycotts of other companies will attract investigators looking into whether the purpose of the boycott is market distortion.
I certainly don't claim the authority to determine if the Sherman Act applies in this case (or in fact any case).
To summarize my earlier post the most interesting thing about this is that the FBI is leading an investigation on this (if the story is true and indeed "Angelgate" is the subject of that investigation). The FBI having jurisdiction raises all sorts of interesting questions.
The lesser point was that the FBI investigates racketeering and the RICO statutes have very broad application as written whether or not they've been used that way to date.
Take the Sotheby's/Christie's price-fixing case. That was a civil matter was it not? It bears some similarity to this (an important difference being that the auction houses were providing a service whereas the angels are investing, which legally speaking isn't quite the same thing).
That's probably true with those examples, but antitrust law tends to ignore large groups of individuals "colluding" in their personal retail purchases. Companies that together exert significant market power get more scrutiny, though; for example, if all the gas-station owners in Texas got together and said that they wouldn't pay more than $1.50/gallon wholesale for gas from refineries, that could be a Sherman Act violation. There have been a few cases about "group boycotts" as well; whereas consumers can organize boycotts for political or personal or whatever reasons, groups of companies organizing boycotts of other companies will attract investigators looking into whether the purpose of the boycott is market distortion.