Seems like your example is a benefit to the consumer, am I missing something there?
It depends what context you're talking about but the dynamics work similarly. For the consumer, the few incumbent companies (this sort of tacit collusion generally happens in oligopolies) would ratchet prices upwards. See below:
"Antitrust has a long history with agriculture and the poultry industry, although the way it's being viewed and enforced has been changing recently. But that's only one side of the story, because even as antitrust evolves, the way companies run their businesses has evolved too. A lot.
When the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act and the Packers and Stockyards Act were all created, the middlemen of America were smaller and not as technically sophisticated, obviously. If you're going to influence prices, you're probably doing it in a back room somewhere, smoking a cigar, probably playing poker.
But today, companies have a host of new data sources and tech-powered tools to run their businesses. And when it comes to chicken and souped up data sources, we have to talk about agrostats.
And this company collects real-time proprietary data from all of the meatpacking producers in a given market, whether it's pork or poultry or chicken or turkey. And they put all this data in these giant books, and they give them out to these various competitors, which now have basically a setup of everything that their competitors are doing, including their price, including their supply, including every single thing part of their market.
And now they can know that, oh, I can probably raise my price because I'm under price relative to my competitor, but I won't lose market share because my competitor is charging more for this product.”
The idea, and this is something that we're seeing in many aspects of our economy, is that when large companies share competitively sensitive information, using often faceless intermediaries,
that sharing of information can result in higher prices to consumers, but it could also result in depriving, in this instance, family farmers and others of a fair return on investment.
But what we are encountering now is almost a supercharging of data sharing and coordination. And so the use of technology and intermediaries has created the opportunity for companies to contribute information, for example, to a central database or service, and have that service essentially perform the function of coordinating and using that data to help those companies extract higher prices or offer lower returns to people who are selling their goods and services.”
In the case of physician wages being suppressed by tacit collusion among the incumbent employers, employers in the healthcare industry often rely on shared compensation benchmarking tools and reports, which aggregate salary data across institutions. These tools provide visibility into "market rates," which can create a focal point for salaries that all companies use to set their pay structures. If all incumbents adhere closely to the same benchmarks, it can suppress upward pressure on wages or just gradually lower them over time.
Large incumbents often use their market power and data to influence policy or lobby for regulations that disadvantage smaller competitors or independent practitioners. This reduces external competitive pressure to raise salaries.
And tacit collusion on wage fixing would be a pretty high risk conspiracy for a group of hospital admins made of dozens of individuals to engage in. That sort of thing will land you in prison and stripped from ever working in an industry again.
That's if they are found guilty which seems difficult. Tacit collusion does not involve explicit agreements, written contracts, or direct communication between companies. Instead, it occurs when companies independently adopt strategies that result in similar outcomes (e.g., suppressing wages) by observing each other's behavior or using shared market data. Without clear evidence of intentional coordination, proving collusion becomes almost impossible. Similar business practices driven by market forces, benchmarking, or AI systems are not illegal unless there’s evidence of intentional coordination. Courts typically require proof of an agreement or concerted action, which is absent in tacit collusion.
Many companies use the same third-party vendors for salary benchmarking, market analytics, or workforce planning. This creates shared knowledge of "market norms," which can align behaviors without any explicit interaction.
Industry-standard compensation surveys or data platforms (e.g., MGMA reports in healthcare) create natural focal points for salaries. Companies setting their wages around these benchmarks are not inherently acting illegally, even if the result suppresses salaries.
Current antitrust laws are designed to address explicit collusion (e.g., price-fixing agreements) and are less effective at regulating tacit behaviors. Regulators often lack the tools, resources, or expertise to detect and prove subtle forms of tacit collusion. Companies may argue that their practices are legitimate responses to market conditions, such as physician oversupply or reimbursement constraints, rather than intentional wage suppression.
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