[gruez]

>Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the UK it is called "price match" and eg. if supermarket says they keep prices matched to their competitor. No regulator raises an eyebrow.

No, the key term is "collusion", which could be done in the open or not. If a competitor told you they were unilaterally raising prices in secret, that would still be legal. Where you get into trouble is if you are cooperating to set prices. And no, this is all determined by a judge so cute workarounds like "I'm telling my competitors that I'm raising prices then gauging his body language" won't work.

[bryanlarsen]

I worked in a small town gas station as a kid. We always phoned our competitor to let them know when we were changing our prices, and they extended us the same courtesy. Usually we followed them, but sometimes we didn't.

Gas prices are posted on massive highly visible signs and are public information. This wasn't collusion, it was a sign of intense but friendly competition.