2019 REPOST: Is this collusion?

We report, you decide:

If you are looking for an interesting case to discuss with your classes, I recommend to you the Commission’s complaint against Valassis.  The product at issue in the case was free-standing inserts – the booklets of coupons that come in Sunday newspapers. Historically, two companies each had about half the market – Valassis and News America Marketing, a subsidiary of NewsCorp. According to the complaint, in June 2001, Valassis raised its prices by 5%. When News America did not follow suit, it gained market share.

With News America sticking to its old prices, Valassis decided in February 2002 to abandon its attempts to raise prices and instead to try to regain its lost market share. From February 2002 until the middle of 2004, a price war ensued, with prices dropping more than 15% from those that prevailed in June 2001. At that point, the complaint alleges, Valassis decided to give up on recovering its market share and instead decided to raise prices. It did not, however, want to repeat the experience of raising prices without having News America follow suit. As a result (again, according to the complaint), Valassis decided to communicate its plans during a stock analyst conference call. In that call, the CEO announced 1) that it was raising its prices, 2) that it would not cut prices in order to attract News America’s customers, 3) that it would cut prices to whatever it had to in order to retain its existing customers, and 4) it would only stick with its strategy if News America made it clear that it was not going to try to take Valassis’s existing customers. It even provided details about specific outstanding pricing offers. The text of the conference call is available as Exhibit A to the Commission’s complaint in the case. I suggest you take a look at it and consider using it as case material in your courses.