Cartels are agreements between companies or countries to coordinate production, pricing, or market share to increase profits. Within national borders, antitrust enforcement is well-established: agencies like the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or the European Commission actively monitor collusion, impose fines, and stop anti-competitive practices.
However, on the international scale, no single institution exists to effectively regulate cartels. Each country follows its own competition laws, making global enforcement extremely difficult. This creates a gap exploited by major international cartels.
OPEC+: A Classic International Cartel
OPEC+ is an agreement between oil-producing nations, including OPEC members and others such as Russia. The cartel’s main strategy is managing or cutting oil production, allowing it to influence supply and thus control global prices.
Objective: Artificially maintain higher oil prices, increasing revenues for member countries.
Mechanism: Coordinated production cuts reduce supply, pushing market prices up.
Impact: Higher costs for oil-importing countries, pressure on dependent economies, and profit for the cartel.
Interestingly, despite its global impact, OPEC+ is not considered illegal, as each country is a sovereign actor, and international law has no direct mechanism to penalize coordinated production decisions.
Why There’s No Global Antitrust Authority
Differences in national laws: the U.S., EU, China, and others have their own antitrust rules, but they apply only within their jurisdictions.
Difficulty proving collusion between sovereign nations: political, economic, and diplomatic factors make it hard to classify such agreements as illegal.
Lack of a global institution with enforcement power: there is no WTO-style authority for cartel regulation to sanction coordinated actions by sovereign states.
Conclusion
Cartels like OPEC+ show that markets can be artificially regulated through international coordination, even when national antitrust agencies are effective.
In the absence of a global regulator, markets are vulnerable to price manipulation, and importing nations must adapt to fluctuations beyond their control.
International agreements, negotiations, and strategic alliances between states are a modern method of market control that often circumvents domestic competition rules.
