<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> NYNEX Corp. v. Discon, Inc., 525 U.S. 128 (1998) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> See US antitrust law and illegal per se </Td> </Tr> <P> Some practices are deemed by the courts to be so obviously detrimental that they are categorized as being automatically unlawful, or illegal per se . The simplest and central case of this is price fixing . This involves an agreement by businesses to set the price or consideration of a good or service which they buy or sell from others at a specific level . If the agreement is durable, the general term for these businesses is a cartel . It is irrelevant whether or not the businesses succeed in increasing their profits, or whether together they reach the level of having market power as might a monopoly . Such collusion is illegal per se . </P> <Ul> <Li> United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U.S. 392 (1927) per se illegality of price fixing </Li> <Li> Appalachian Coals, Inc. v. United States, 288 U.S. 344 (1933) </Li> <Li> United States v. Socony - Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150 (1940) </Li> </Ul>

There are many exceptions to antitrust laws identify the two most important exceptions