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Posted By: scgaynor

Actually, colluding on lots is very illegal. It is often hard to prove, but if one member of the partnership gets upset and decides to tip off the authorities, there can be pretty stiff fines. I don't think that the numbers involved here would be high enough for any law enforcement agency to get involved, but talking about it on a public board certainly makes it easy for them to figure out who is colluding to keep the price down if they did want to make a case out of it

There was a situation at Sotheby's or Christies a number of years ago where some bidders conspired to keep the price of an item down, they then went and had a mini auction between themselves. One of the guys that lost got upset and informed the authorities and there were some pretty heavy fines.

I was writing this just as Barry was posting his message.

Scott