COLLUSION IN ATLANTA…..How is this Employee Theft??

What the heck is Collusion?  Sounds like some sort of torture or perhaps something rather risqué.  Employee theft can often be associated with collusion.  And sometimes collusion is more prevalent in small companies than larger ones. Atlanta business are just as open to this as any other.

The exact definition of collusion is an agreement, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage.  Employee theft by collusion can be complicated or extremely simple.

Let’s look at a simple example.  You have a company who purchases widgets.  There are two widget manufacturers, widget maker A and widget maker B.  Pricing, delivery and customer service as a vendor for A and B are exactly the same.  The one difference is, widget maker A has purchased for the procurement manager of your company season football tickets to the Atlanta Falcons (yes I know you are thinking, “who in the world would want those tickets”, try to stay with me though), therefore your procurement manager makes a secret agreement with A and will not purchase widgets from maker B, he goes with manufacturer A to get those FABULOUS tickets.  That example my friend is employee theft by collusion.

Data obtained from Wikipedia shows the following more complicated historical examples of collusion in the United States:

• Market division and price-fixing among manufacturers of heavy electrical equipment in the 1960s, including General Electric.
• An attempt by Major League Baseball owners to restrict players’ salaries in the mid-1980s.
• The sharing of potential contract terms by NBA free agents in an effort to help a targeted franchise circumvent the salary cap
• Price fixing within food manufacturers providing cafeteria food to schools and the military in 1993.

Suspect employee theft by collusion in your Atlanta area company?  Contact us at employee theft or call 1.770.426.0547 for assistance.