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This article explores the regulation of cartel conduct in Australia focusing, in particular, on the recent decision to criminalise so-called ‘hard-core’ cartels. It illuminates three interdependent ambiguities in regulating such conduct: economic, moral and legal. The case study is drawn on to highlight the challenges for the criminal law in attempting to resolve such ambiguities or tensions as they arise in the regulation of business behaviour generally.We argue that such challenges exist because the ambiguities reflect broader shifts taking place on an ongoing basis in economic policy, political ideology and social norms in Australian society.

isbn 9780521760898 • Hardback • 616pp FEATURES • First book dedicated to the subject of cartel regulation in Australia, providing also comparison with major overseas regimes • First book to provide a detailed critique of Australia's new anti-cartel regime, introduced in 2009

The phenomenon of cartel criminalisation provides a window on dynamics in society at large. In particular, it exemplifies the political risk that governments face in wrestling with conflicting economic and social imperatives. This article uses the experience in Australia to demonstrate how the political risk inherent in cartel criminalisation may be overcome. Alive to public ambivalence over neoliberal market-based reforms, the Australian competition authority and government downplayed the economic rationale for cartel criminalisation and capitalised instead on the public's need for certainty and security in the social order. This was done by playing up the role of the government as protector of the economy, exploiting public scepticism towards globalisation and distrust of big business and invoking populist egalitarian sentiment. The strategy has been effective in the short term. However, challenges still loom in the enforcement of the cartel regime that may yet expose the fallacies in the case that was made for criminalisation.