Joel I. Klein Assistant Attorney General Antitrust Division 1. Antitrust laws protect competition. Free and open competition benefits consumers by ensuring lower prices and new and better products. In a freely competitive market, each competing business generally will try to attract consumers by cutting its prices and increasing the quality of its product or services. Competition and the profit opportunities it brings also stimulate businesses to find new, innovative and more efficient methods of production.
Consumers benefit from competition through lower prices, better products and services.
Inefficient firms or companies that fail to understand or react to consumer needs may soon find themselves losing out in the competitive battle. When competitors agree to fix prices, rig bids or allocate customers, consumers lose the benefits of competition. The result is a loss not only to U.S. consumers and taxpayers, but also the U.S. economy. When the competitive system is operating effectively, there is no need for government intrusion. The government therefore does not prosecute all agreements between companies, but only those that threaten to raise prices to consumers or to deprive them of new and better products.