MPA LLC Consumer Protection Group announces NEW ADDITIONS to Reporting - Anti-Trust & Discrimination

Anti-Trust and Discrimination

Definition of 'Antitrust' The antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. They prohibit a variety of practices that restrain trade.
	Investopedia explains 'Antitrust' Examples of illegal practices are price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power.

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Antitrust law seeks to make enterprises compete fairly. It has had a serious effect on business practices and the organization of U.S. industry. Premised on the belief that free trade benefits the economy, businesses, and consumers alike, the law forbids several types of restraint of trade and monopolization. These fall into four main areas: agreements between or among competitors, contractual arrangements between sellers and buyers, the pursuit or maintenance of Monopoly power, and mergers.

Legislation enacted by the federal and various state governments to regulate trade and commerce by preventing unlawful restraints, price-fixing, and monopolies; to promote competition; and to encourage the production of quality goods and services at the lowest prices, with the primary goal of safeguarding public welfare by ensuring that consumer demands will be met by the manufacture and sale of goods at reasonable prices.

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Call for Reporting
On March 13, 2013, Mary Glass, Chair/CEO, Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC announced Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC adds CONSUMER PROTECTION.

MPA LLC adopted goals and expectations to align with the federal Consumer Division at the federal level.  They include:

• To FOSTER solution-building with local-state-national government and other organizations for short and long-term planning and channel development that help prevent bias and DISCRIMINATION of all businesses, especially for-profit businesses.
• Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC is prepared the next year (August 1, 2013 - August 1, 2014) to investigate, research, plan and announce strategies for overcoming biases, discrimination and non-productive practices that create non-engagement of African American, other People of Color and the Work Challenged.   This includes tort reform and use of legal measures to ensure that movement takes place.
• To IDENTIFY leaders and organizations for collaboration and sustainability.
• To STRENGTHEN "people protection" rights with enhanced civil and criminal enforcement efforts.
• To CREATE PARTNERSHIPS through outreach in federal-state-local government agencies, People of Color business chambers, neighborhood businesses, neighborhood community-based organizations, urban health care partners - health practitioners, health providers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
•  To EDUCATE the public to curb victimizing.
  

  

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Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC is a for-profit organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that works on neighborhood channel development for hidden talent and vetted businesses in Milwaukee.  We work passionately and with frankness that is straight-forward and demands Code of Conduct that includes Etiquette for African American, other People of Color and Work Challenged Milwaukeeans, those often left-out and discriminated against.

Our  core competencies are based in empowerment of partnering and bundling for ease of operation and maximizing resources through principled-centered leadership; tort reform and removal of servitude government barriers, creation and review of public policies in the public square; collaborative financing that includes innovation and paradigm shifting; and, helping to ensure Education Attainment and Information Technology Attainment.

Consumer Protection became a key link to the above core values.
Lack of Customer Care found in MPA LLC 2005-2010 Smart Growth observation by Mary Glass was at the root of why reform is a MUST.  The intent is to provide a resource for taking customer concerns, reporting discrimination, exploitation and then airing of the positives as well as the negatives in Reporting.  To help put in place hands-on tooling and constructs that would allow "free-flow" of commerce in the Milwaukee area that removed barriers that include abuse of power, size, monopoly and oligopoly privileges that causes strict and unequal control of the market place - a paralysis of small and People of Color businesses.

MPA LLC seek Like-minds" to provide a fair marketplace that allows everyone to operate with a Code of Conduct that screams for "on-the-merits" and "open-to-all".  A specific interest is in bringing census tract and small businesses of the neighborhood to the center, to encourage open dialog and BUY-IN for strategic planning for economic-engines created for Health Care, Affordable Health Care and Information Technology.

Recent updates

• July 15, 2013 - In addition to U.S. Justice Department for Consumer Protection, we added a focus on "Use of Resources" in place at the Federal level.
  Senate Finance Committee
  Senator Max Backus is Chairman and Senator Orin Hatch is the Co-Chairman.
• July 31, 2013, NEW DAY Reporting for addressing monopoly and oligopoly restrictions and discrimination that would seek the ears of the NEWLY selected National Governor's Association Advisory Committee.
• August 22, 2013, working with law firms and legal scholars on Anti-Trust and other reforms that will remove monopolizing and total restriction in the marketplace.
• Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC has added the letter of the law to its All Hands on Deck, WE CAN Initiative pursuit for equal access in the marketplace, especially since it has had difficulty with monopolizing :

• Small Business Discrimination and Bias - County Executive Chris Abele, Board of Supervisors & Milwaukee County Ethics Board - Milwaukee County Department of Aging.
• City of Milwaukee, State of Wisconsin - DCD/Department of City Development, Department of Public Works and Public Health Department and City of Milwaukee Housing Authority - Section 8 Housing.
• U.S. Departments - Secretary Kathleen Sebelius - HHS/Health and Human Services, Deputy Secretary Maurice Jones, HUD/Housing and Urban Development, Administrator Karen Mills, Regional Director SBA/Small Business Administration.

Glass is conducting a collaboration grid to ensure that Anti-trust issues are before appropriate legislators, groups, committees and courts.
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Definition of 'Bid Rigging' A scheme in which businesses collude so that a competing business can secure a contract for goods or services at a pre-determined price. Bid rigging stifles free-market competition, as the rigged price will be unfairly high. The Sherman Act of 1890 makes bid rigging illegal under U.S.antitrust law. Bid rigging is a felony punishable by fines, imprisonment or both.

Investopedia explains 'Bid Rigging' There are four main types of bid rigging: bid suppression, complementary bidding, bid rotation and subcontracting. In the most common of these schemes, complementary bidding, some of the "competitors" submit offers that they know the buyer will reject because the price is too high or the terms are unacceptable in order to create the appearance of legitimate bidding while ensuring that a prearranged "competitor" will win the bid.

Stay tuned.