This hypothesis has been questioned many times and in many different ways, but in the last six years, the FTC has had an unusual amount of utilization, primarily spurred by political motivations. Even the FTC acknowledges that some seemingly collusive pricing is actually a result of a group of producers able to produce at an extremely low cost. As much as the FTC seeks to protect against price-fixing, it is empirically dubious that price-fixing can be sustained over any significant period of time. Groups can almost never agree on capacity, constraints, or price reductions without one of them trying to undercut or out-produce the others. The FTC is on the watch against groups engaging in illegal price-fixing practices within one country, yet the recent falling out of the UAE and OPEC give evidence that even when out in the open and legally enforced, price-fixing and all forms of collusion are a ticking time bomb.

The UAE and OPEC appeared to have the perfect conditions for a collusive relationship. It was legal, bound by contract, and even relatively internationally accepted. The oil producing countries were all able to maximize their group benefit, only marginally to the detriment of some producers. Saudi Arabia held far more negotiating power than anyone else, but the other nations still had significant power. They set a shared output quota in order to manipulate international oil prices. Each country had to stay within the guidelines of whatever was advantageous for the group at the time. However, there was just one problem. The UAE happens to have a lower per unit barrel cost than almost all of the other countries in OPEC. They would benefit in an outsized way from losing the upper cap on their production. However, the economic realities of the situation at one point seemed marginal in comparison to the geographic and national realities. OPEC allowed alignment with the power brokers of the region, and let the UAE leverage their oil production into oil negotiation power, and into real regional power.

However, contrary to the consistent actions of the FTC, the UAE and the other countries in OPEC were not able to keep their agreement in perpetuity. Years of the UAE wanting to produce more, as it would be far more beneficial to them than other countries with higher production costs, along with the recent Iran war led the UAE to formally leave OPEC. During the war, the UAE received the vast majority of strikes from Iran, and felt that they were not being appropriately supported by their regional allies. They lost a massive amount of business in tourism during that time, as they could no longer claim to be one safe place in a sea of violence. They were one of OPEC's main producers, and their leaving puts the future of OPEC in the balance. The Iran war was more of a tipping point rather than the main driver of them leaving, as different cost structures make sustained collusive activity even more difficult. Even companies with the exact same cost structures would still try to find ways to undercut the others, whether through offering transportation, discounts or more convenient packaging, but the UAE had known that their economic future would be better without OPEC, they were just waiting for the opportune moment.

Collusion is simply much harder to sustain than the FTC thinks it is. If legally enforceable collusion cannot sustain itself, how much more difficult would it be for illegal collision to do the same. Before the FTC prosecutes another industry or group of industries for collusion, they should understand its inherent instability, and that long-term collusion rarely creates prices different from what they would be otherwise. Even within the collusive framework, companies often find ways to compete outside of the price, through convenience or quality. Collusion has a much higher chance of happening through government intervention, but even in that situation, it is still extremely difficult to maintain, as can be seen from the interaction of the UAE and OPEC. If even one company within a collusive network is able to profit from a different price structure than the others in that network, the FTC's best weapon is time. Historically almost every cartel has naturally disappeared. The FTC could spend its time prosecuting something that will go away naturally, or they could find a better use of the manpower, ideally not doing anything at all.