Almost every day press covers news that firms are convicted or under investigation on the suspicion of price fixing and other trade-restraining collusion. Cartels appear to be the most dominant business strategy of companies. However, firms are better suited for noncooperative strategy than cooperative one. Cartels are basically non-cooperative bargaining and hence bear in itself a seed of self-destruction. Every participant are obliged to limit its production at the level which are agreed in the cartel. Because the marginal revenues are greater than the marginal costs, individual firms always have temptation to deviate from the cartel, and get extra profits. To deter a participant from opportunistically cheating it, a cartel must devise some mechanisms of monitoring and punishing the cheating behaviors. In addition to these costs, it also may pay the fines and penalties from the charge of antitrust violations. Considering these costs, firms are more difficult to successfully agree and manage the cartels. 

Every success of cartel is fundamentally backed up by the government. The government implements and enacts a number of entry barrier regulations. Also it imposes various types of price regulations such as maximum price, recommended price, standard price and administrative guidelines. Nonprice regulations also facilitates cartels. These practices, as a focal point of 'meeting in minds', supply an implicit but effective communication tools for firms. In this respect, government-sponsored cartel are very stable. They are also legally exempted from the antitrust litigation. Without involvement of  government, cartels are easily collapsed by both cheating temptation inside the cartel and entry pressure outside it. The only important source of long-lasting cartel is the government. The studies of 128 cases convicted by the Fair Trade Commission in Korea  reveals that cases, where government get involved, take account of 42 cases, 32.8% of the total.

Given the governmental origin of cartels, the effective measure to curb the anticompetitive activities must come firstly from government sector. A comprehensive measure to combat and abolish anti-competitive laws and regulation are required. To extend the scope of illegal cartels, and level up criminal sentencing are not panacea to stop the cartel. The rational guidelines for cartel enforcement would be to  equate the punishment to its social costs and use economic punishment.