Hmm, I don't think the original post was clear enough. The problem was with using money to prevent your competitors from doing business. Doing so subverts the

Hmm, I don't think the original post was clear enough. The problem was with using money to prevent your competitors from doing business. Doing so subverts the free market. Suppose every time a competitor rented office space, you bought the building and evicted them. Suppose Walmart opens a store in SoMa that sells groceries at a tenth of what surrounding stores sell, then jacks prices when those stores fold. To ELI5: you run a lemonade stand. Your neighbor Susie also has a lemonade stand. Susie's mom doesn't like your parents and wants you to fail, so she pays the store $500 to not sell you lemonades. Yeah, the market price of exclusive lemonade rights is now $500, but unreasonable sums are being spent to prevent competition. Something's wrong. There are laws against most anticompetitive practices, but not all. Part of the motivation behind the poaching agreement was filling a gap. This was illegal.