CORPORATIONS: Price Fixing at G.E.?

The sharp edge to Chairman Ralph J. Cordiner's voice shocked General Electric brass at the annual management conference in Hot Springs, Va. last week. Certain G.E. officers and general managers, said Cordiner, had shown "flagrant disregard" of G.E. policy—and possibly U.S. antitrust laws—by discussing prices with competitors before they bid on big contracts for Government agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Equally grave, these men "had categorically denied any such acts" to Cordiner until months after a federal grand jury in Philadelphia began investigating; only then did they confess to him. Some of the executives, announced G.E.,...