Big fines and jail terms in bill to criminalise anti-competitive activity by companies.
New Zealand corporates are being urged to get up to speed with a law that turns anti-competitive activity into "serious white collar crime" with jail sentences like those seen in recent finance company cases.
Parliament is expected to pass a bill that criminalises cartel behaviour early next year, if not by the end of this year. The types of activities covered by the law - which is called the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill - include price-fixing, restricting output and market allocating.
Price fixing, which is already a breach of the Commerce Act, is where rivals work together to control prices of goods or services that are meant to compete with one another.
Restricting output involves competitors getting together to limit the production or supply of goods and services (thereby influencing prices), while market allocation is where rivals carve up particular classes of customers or geographic areas between themselves.