We’ve had our fun at the expense of gas-station magnate (and failed politico) Rodolphe “Skip” Vallee, for his late-blooming environmentalism when it comes to potential competition at Exit 16, his stout defense of Burlington-area gas retailers against charges of price-fixing, and his laughable attempts to put himself on the same level as Bernie Sanders.
But maybe we’re being unfair. Maybe Skip and his colleagues have gotten a bum rap on the collusion charges. After all, we have no proof beyond circumstantial evidence. It might be different if, say, the gasoline industry had a record of price-fixing. That’d put things in a different light.
The London offices of BP and Shell have been raided by European regulators investigating allegations they have “colluded” to rig oil prices for more than a decade.
The European commission said its officers carried out “unannounced inspections” at several oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway to investigate claims they may have “colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency [PRA] to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products”.
… The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a “huge impact” on the price of petrol at the pumps “potentially harming final consumers”.
The EC wouldn’t identify which corporations were raided, but several, including BP, Shell, and Norway’s Statoil, as well as the oil price reporting agency Platts, all confirmed they are being investigated. Or, as a Shell statement put it, “currently assisting the European commission in an inquiry.”
Cough.
A top Liberal Democratic politician compared the affair to the Libor scandal, in which many of the world’s biggest banks were found to have manipulated global interest rates for their own profit.
And in case you had any illusions that Libor was a one-shot deal, check out this appalling story by Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who says the big banks are fixing all sorts of market rates.
You have to think that, if the banks have figured out how to fix pricing mechanisms for their own advantage, that knowledge has probably spread to Big Oil as well.
But hey, I’m sure the only reason Skip’s stations charge higher prices (when they can get away with it) is to pay for those lovely fake flowers in Maplefields restrooms.
down there is the tax abiding land of NH, in that little town where 89 and 93 meet. More than one station there was in the same ball park by a penny or two. The station was not one of skippyV’s
Today in Burlington the lowest price I have driven past is 3.59… So we just added a few pennies to the price here in the Green Mountains-supposedly that we needed that to patch up the holes in the bridges. NH does have nice roads.
Considering the Fed tax is the same, either Vermont is putting one over on us in the “we need more tax” department, or the fuel dealers in our neck of the world are walking away with some extra change in their pockets and colluding on how many pennies they were willing to smile and walk away with. Competition is a long lost idea on guys like Skip, who are both retail and wholesale entities. Another broken economic system in Vermont like healthcare and Prescription Drugs….
When is the last time you heard of Skip doing something philanthropic in the community?? Seriously, does he and we just don’t know about it???