Posted By:
Tim NewcombI'm sure that bidding collusion is illegal in some situations, but I don't see how you can claim it is on the same footing as bid shilling. For a group of people to say, "you bid on this lot and if you win, I'll pay you X for this card and Y for that card" doesn't seem any different to me from somebody winning the lot on his own and offering some of the cards to friends at a proportional price.
To put it another way, I don't see how you can equate refraining from an action (not bidding) with a positive action (shilling). No one has any obligation to bid on anything in any auction. But auction houses, according to their own "max bid" policies, incur an obligation not to bump up the price of a lot to a bidder's max unless it is through other legitimate bids.
That to me is the ethical difference. And it sounds like the FBI understands the distinction quite clearly.
Seeing Peter's post, I see there is another good argument. The only way I have ever "bought" in a Mastro auction is as part of a bidding group. On my own I could not compete for their lots. I'm sure there are many others like this. It makes sense to me that if we band together, we may well increase rather than decrease the number of bidders who are capable of actually placing a winning bid.
Tim