But only after Britain's trustbusters have sifted the minute evidence will shoppers know whether they have been the victims of a new form of price-fixing.
The producers and some New Zealand officials said such bargaining would violate the country's laws, which treat group negotiations with contractors as a form of price-fixing.
The league introduced "slot recommendations," a form of price-fixing in which signing bonuses are preset, according to draft position, by the commissioner's office, and owners wishing to pay out of lockstep must now justify their profligate intentions in writing.
He said it was a form of price fixing, but an odd one.
But some insurance company executives said standardization might be construed as a form of price fixing, and Mr. Greenberg said he opposed the idea.
Germany and some Scandinavian nations also have some form of price fixing on their books, so there is the possibility that the Commission will be more tolerant of the agency model.
Instead of price-fixing, it was vote-fixing.
After dairy producers were accused of price-fixing, for instance, several of them announced price cuts.
Just in case you wonder whether this was really an endorsement of price-fixing, or whether Mr. Bush was just being polite, his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, left no doubt: "The president thinks it's important to have stability, and stability can come in the form of low prices, stability can come in the form of moderate prices".
And no amount of price-fixing or data-cooking can hide that.
