Former Senator and now chief of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Ralph Recto, is calling on congressmen to draft Anti trust laws to prevent public utilities (specifically oil companies) from colluding, cartel like, in rigging their pricing so as to be profitable to them. Anti trust laws will promote “true” competition in the market place.
All this was brought about by the government feeling that the Oil companies were taking too long in lowering their prices.
Economist, Solita Monsod, said that the reason why Oil prices take too long to rollback is because of the huge inventories they have to maintain.
Another reason she said why there is fair competition in the market place is because the government has a stake in Petron Corp. 4 board seats guarantees them watchdog oversight on the Oil company and prevents them from over pricing.
Of course now this isn’t plausible, with the government just recently selling their stake in Petron to a UK company who in turn sold it to Beer Giant, San Miguel Corp.
Just makes sense now why the government is clamoring for anti-trust laws.
[source]
Category: Law, Oil Price
