These behind the scenes emails raise a question in my mind. On what other issues these companies are covertly colluding with each other which we don't know. One obvious thing could be some kind of silent agreement on not competing with each other on employee salaries etc. to keep them in check. There could be more like trying not to increase valuations of startups they are trying to acquire.
Is it really covert? In the case of the Nortel bids, the bidders were getting government approval before bidding, and it was made public after the fact who was in the groups.
I'm not sure that removing anonymity from bidders is a good thing or not. I mean, if you know who the other bidders are, that would affect your strategy, removing some purity from the auction process, wouldn't it?
But, maybe you feel I'm sidestepping your real issue, so let me make another point:
In any situation where companies might collude like this, they're effectively creating a cartel. Say, in the case of the employee salaries that you mention.
The problem with a cartel is that there is always an incentive for a member of the cartel to violate the agreement. For instance, if MSFT, Apple, Facebook and Google agreed to cap software developer salaries, then Google (or one of the others) has an incentive to secretly violate that agreement to get the best employees, right?
Pretty soon the cartel falls apart, or the agreement has no effect. The stronger the agreement, the more incentive there is to violate it.
Further, imagine if they were successful and kept salaries below a market rate-- this would give a huge boost to any of their competitors who were willing to pay market rates, right?
They'd only be shooting themselves in the foot by doing so, driving the best employees to other companies.
This is why cartels don't really work, or at least aren't sustainable for very long.
