CARTEL

Organization created between a group of companies, endeavoring to control or manipulate prices. It pertains to a collection of business or countries acting hand-in-hand as a single producer, agreeing to affect prices for some products and services by regulating production and marketing. Over an industry, cartel has less command than a monopoly, an occurrence in which a single group or firm holds all or almost all of the market of these product or service. In the United States and the European Union, these are illegal. However, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), world’s biggest cartel, is guarded by US foreign trade laws.