As Kurt Mirow and Harry Maurer have shown in their book Webs of
Power, multinationals have long engaged in this kind of collaboration
through the medium of international cartels, even though these are illegal
in many countries. They have also reduced competition by entering into
home-market protection agreements that establish exclusive territories that
competitors will avoid, or where competitors will content themselves with
existing market shares, leaving the dominant firm with no competition
except from small domestic firms outside the cartel. "Hunting ground"
agreements have often defined the degree of competition that is to be
allowed in foreign markets, with preference usually being given to patterns
of traditional m~rket dominance. Agreements in relation to the exchange
and transfer of technology and patent rights have reduced competition in
this sphere as well. With the new patterns of international alliances, all this
has developed to a new level of sophistication. The practices add to the
already immense power of the multinationals in an important way, not least
because they help to prevent mutually destructive battles between the
giants, by controlling the ground and terms on which they will fight.