What’s likely is that she was offered more generous compensation in return for things this. This is pretty standard stuff. What “threats and consequences” are you suggesting?
Yea, it's time for this whole NAR thing to be disassembled. It's unfortunate how much we undervalue the impact of collusion on the health of a free market. And worse, how out in the open and right in front of everyone this was. There are a lot of shady corners of industries that the mainstream doesn't know about or have regular exposure to, so it's not surprising that monopolies and regulatory capture shenanigans exist like this, but this is something that almost everyone uses multiple times in adulthood.
I think what we have going on today is more than simply "weird" or scandalous on the level of nudity, but instead is remembered as the cultural cleansing mechanism that killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.
Collusion is the antithesis of competition. And it's illegal, hence the litigation. I am referring to the behavior of a free market, not an illegally fixed one.
Companies would "pocket" the difference? What pocket would that be exactly? Companies are in competition. While company A, might "pocket" the savings, company B will use it to their advantage in potentially any number of ways - paying employees more, reducing prices to customers, investing in new equipment. You refer to the 8 million companies in the US as if they're one entity that conspires in lockstep. That's not how it works.