What do you expect will happen to prices after a cartel collapses? What happened to auction rate since the investigation started?

On Friday, October 6, 2000, Diana D. Brooks, the former president and Chief Executive of Sotheby's Holdings Inc. pleaded guilty to conspiring with Christie's International to violate antitrust laws. Christie's and Sotheby's are alleged to have agreed to fix prices on a number of sales. Brooks admitted to U.S. District Courts that she had a number of meetings with a representative from Christie's in which the parties involved agreed to fix prices with respect to commissions charged to sellers during the period from April 1993 to December 1999. Brooks claimed that these meetings were directed by order of her superior, Mr. Taubman. (Mr. Taubman has denied any involvement with the price fixing in a released press statement.) Christie's and Sotheby's have dominant market shares in the global auction market, but they have both become more aggressive about muscling into new types of business and fattening the commissions that buyers must pay on their goods. While art enthusiasts have become used to dealing with a relatively uniform commission structure, the admissions of collusion have angered dealers who are talking about taking their business elsewhere. This is hardly a credible threat however, as the two companies are powerhouses that dominate every major sale worldwide