Not necessarily. In many sealed-bid auctions, bidders hope to win with a lower bid (often much lower) than they would if they were bidding against others in the same room. This is especially true if you have no idea whether anyone else is bidding on the item at all. I have placed very low bids on items in sealed-bid auctions for things I had no immediate need for, but would happily pay for if the cost was very low (and I have won many such items, sometimes because no one else even bid on them).

The judge basically says as much in the end:

>“You’ve got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for everyone else,” he said.

Which is a truly bizarre statement for a judge to make given the nature of this entire case. Then again, "good faith errors" certainly shows the bias of this judge here.

That is a very large claim to make that ignores psychology. If it were true, you would never see open cry auctions used anywhere.

Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe standard "English" auctions would be so popular if it was true.