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Right now, multiple UK supermarkets (Tesco and Sainsburys) have a price match system, where selected products cost the same as at a budget competitor - Aldi.

This means, for example, a 400g tin of Chopped Tomatoes cost the same at all 3 supermarkets (39p as of writing). However, the price was recently increased at Aldi (from 34p), meaning the price went up everywhere.

I'm interested why this doesn't fall afoul of any anti-cartel / anti price-fixing laws. What's the difference between a price match and price fixing?

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Price fixing is a agreement between competitors not to undercut each others' artificially high price.

That type of agreement is not present in the scenario you describe. You have not alleged that:

  • Aldi agreed to not lower its price; nor that
  • any competitor agreed to not set prices even lower than Aldi.
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Price fixing requires collusion

Price fixing requires agreement between the parties. Price matching just requires the use of publicly available information.

You thought supermarket adds with prices were communicating with their customers? No, they’re communicating with their competitors. It’s not illegal because communication between competitors is fine, price fixing requires agreement.

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