What is the ruling on agreeing not to bid on goods?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : May Allah reward you, O Shaykh. There are three people who go to an auction.
The Shaykh : What? What?
The questioner : They go to a car auction.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Then two of them refrain from entering the bidding so that the price of the car does not rise. They appoint one of them to buy the car. After he finishes buying the car, they conduct a bidding process on it so that one of them can take it. If the original price was, for example, five thousand, and after the bidding it reached six thousand, the person who is satisfied with that price takes it. Then they divide the excess amount of one thousand riyals among the three people?
The Shaykh : Yes. The summary of the question is: If a group agrees not to bid, there is a detail in this. If there is no one in the market to buy this commodity except these people, it is forbidden for them, because this is equivalent to hoarding. If the commodity is bought by them and others, there is no blame on them, because if they do not bid, others will bid and the matter will be resolved.
The Shaykh : What? What?
The questioner : They go to a car auction.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Then two of them refrain from entering the bidding so that the price of the car does not rise. They appoint one of them to buy the car. After he finishes buying the car, they conduct a bidding process on it so that one of them can take it. If the original price was, for example, five thousand, and after the bidding it reached six thousand, the person who is satisfied with that price takes it. Then they divide the excess amount of one thousand riyals among the three people?
The Shaykh : Yes. The summary of the question is: If a group agrees not to bid, there is a detail in this. If there is no one in the market to buy this commodity except these people, it is forbidden for them, because this is equivalent to hoarding. If the commodity is bought by them and others, there is no blame on them, because if they do not bid, others will bid and the matter will be resolved.