OPEC could be charged with price fixing if U.S. Congress approves new bill

WASHINGTON (AFX) - Two senior U.S. lawmakers have authored a bill which will enable U.S. antitrust authorities to bring actions against the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for collusive practices in setting the price of oil.	    The lawmakers authored the bill in the wake of a federal investigation into gasoline price spikes last summer across the Midwest.	    In a joint statement, Democratic Senator Herb Kohl and Republican Senator Mike DeWine, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Anti-trust, Business Rights and Competition, said "higher oil prices drive up the cost of transportation, harming thousands of companies throughout the economy from trucking to aviation."	    The legislation, which could be brought against any foreign states, "would, for the first time, enable our authorities to take legal action to combat the illegitimate price-fixing conspiracy of the oil cartel."	    "As long as OPEC is allowed to control the world's energy supply, we are guaranteed to have more and more of those supply shocks and therefore more and more problems for American consumers," the senators said in their statement.	    The legislation will enable lawsuits in U.S. federal court against organisations like OPEC by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).	    The lawmakers authored their bill following an FTC probe into sharp price spikes in the retail cost of gasoline across the Midwest last summer which saw prices in Chicago rise 15 pct over the course of a month to 2.13 usd a gallon during late June 2000.	    Following a six-month investigation, the FTC said earlier today that it "found no credible evidence of collusion or other anti-competitive conduct by the (U.S.) oil industry, the investigation found that a combination of many factors was likely responsible for the price spike."	    Despite this, the FTC did say that "there were, however, some strategic choices by some oil companies (which it declined to identify) designed to maximize profits that contributed to the temporary price increases."	    Sources close to the investigation have told AFX News that the FTC probe was focusing on  BP Amoco PLC, Marathon Oil, Koch Industries, Tosco and Citgo among others. 	    The agency said primary reasons for the spike in gasoline prices included refinery production problems, pipeline disruptions and low inventories, as well as secondary problems like high crude oil prices which contributed to the low inventories.

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