In this New York Times article the beer companies Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, SAB Miller, and Molson Coors are accused of rising prices for competition purposes and are being labeled oligopolies. The definition of an oligopoly is a situation of imperfect competition is which an industry is dominated by a small number of suppliers. These suppliers are all raising their beer prices together at the same time and control about eighty percent of the beer market. This has occurred before, but since the United States is in recession, there are problems that are starting to arise. The simple up rise of price on a six-pack of beer is stirring up issues within the beer markets. Throughout the years the number of beer suppliers have decreased due to the rivalry between these three brands.
Since President Barrack Obama has been appointed, his administration has been out to break up these beer monopolies along with other monopolies, such as those with food, gas and electronics. In the past there has been cases brought to the Supreme Court that deal with such antitrust issues. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1980 in order to regulate fair competition between markets. It eliminates the possibility of monopolies taking over. These three beer companies are so big, and just keep on growing which makes it almost impossible to stop or control. To them, some fines are just little bumps in the road and do not really make that big of a difference to their company. In the past companies such as Pabst has been ruled as anticompetitive and having to change different strategies and other brewers, such as Blatz, that they had acquired.
These three beer companies are so strong and have so many well-known names with in them. It would seem almost impossible for any other companies to come anywhere in reach. They are an imperfect competition and have had great success with their advertising and competitive pricing, these companies are going nowhere fast.
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