Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Competition is responsible for much of the prosperity around us. Competitive markets deliver lower prices, better quality, abundance of choice, and increased innovation. But while competition benefits the consumers, it can prove challenging to producers and sellers, who need to constantly improve to stay in business. As a result, sellers may sometimes look for ways to dampen the competitive process. Our antitrust and competition laws are designed to address these risks and safeguard consumer welfare. The competition enforcers have the task of unravelling price-fixing cartels, challenging powerful companies that abuse their power, and monitoring proposed merger transactions that could undermine effective competition. In doing so, competition enforcers have to carefully consider the level of intervention and ensure they do not distort the natural dynamics of competition. Drawing on case studies from the US and the European Union, this Very Short Introduction explores the promise and limitations of competitive market dynamics. In examining the laws and the way they are enforced, Ariel Ezrachi considers the delicate relationship between a free market economy and government intervention, and the fascinating forces of competition that shape modern society. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Competition law, at both the EC and UK levels, plays an important and ever increasing role in regulating the conduct of businesses. Competition law can affect business contracts, take-overs and mergers, co-ordinated actions, pricing behaviour and, also, S

This title covers international and comparative issues of antitrust law, economics, and policy. It can be used to enrich U.S. antitrust casebooks or by itself for courses on global antitrust. It addresses all major issues of competition law and global competition policy, including extraterritoriality; global norms; cooperation, convergence, and divergence; the state's role in restraining or facilitating competition; process and procedures; and substantive areas including cartels, horizontal and vertical agreements, abuse of dominance, and mergers. It compares developed and developing jurisdictions. It references numerous jurisdictions, including the European Union, China, Japan, India, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Latin American countries.

This book is the first to empirically study the role of non-competition interests in Article 101 TFEU enforcement.

Significant power is exercised through webs created between different systems of national law, influenced by governments but also by transnational actors such as global corporations and transnational NGOs, and often with an overlay of formal international law or of substantial influence from international institutions. Studying the procedures used by competition institutions (dealing with specific cases concerning monopolies, mergers, anti-competitive practices) this volumes uses a template to study practices of many national institutions and the EU, and examines the interactions among these and with prescriptions of influential international bodies. Together these form a web, with existing procedural rules and practices in a particular institution criticized and alternatives championed and transmitted partly by prescription and partly by arguments of major global law firms, of global corporations, and of consultants dispatched by the ICN and other agencies. This whole process, examined for the first time in this book, is the real global governance of the procedural law and practices of market supervision under competition rules. Delving deeply into their jurisdictions and internationally, the contributors illuminate the inner workings of the systems and expose the procedure, process, and performance norms embedded within. Case studies are drawn from Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, South Africa, the USA, and the EU, as well as four leading international institutions involved in antitrust, the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the International Competition Network. The results reveal a convergence of these norms across the very different systems, a procedural norms convergence that offers a necessary counterpart to studies on substantive rule convergence. These results provide benchmarks for the field, suggest possibilities for future development, and offer lessons for all interested in competition law and global governance.

Examines the intersections between corporate and antitrust law, focusing on corporate interest, governance, and the financial links among companies.

During the last decade the European Commission has progressively adopted what is called a and‘more economic approachand’ toward competition policy. This approach, which draws on U.S. antitrust policy, puts greater emphasis on possible welfare effects of business practices and is less concerned with competitive market structures. Under this school of thought concentration cannot be said to impede effective competition to the extent that efficiency gains outweigh market distortions. In order to stimulate the debate on this basic reorientation, in January 2009 the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law at Hamburg convened economists, legal scholars, and practitioners for an exchange of views on these and‘newand’ methodological foundations of EU competition policy and competition law. Two especially controversial elements were chosen for in-depth discussion: the prohibition of abuses of dominant positions and the review of State aid. This book reproduces fourteen papers from this conference, representing the considered views of prominent European lawyers, economists, academics, policymakers, and enforcement officials in the competition field on matters such as: the objectives of EU competition law; the current enforcement guidelines of the EU Commission regarding Article 102 TFEU and? measuring market power; abusive low pricing strategies; the economics of competition law enforcemennt; recent developments in EU State aid law; economic justifications for State aid. A critical assessment of the Commissionand’s State aid action plan by the German Monopolies Commission is appended in English. Applying law and economics theory to competition law, this book shows that the and‘more economicand’ approach is exerting a considerable impact on various sectors of competition law. The authors clearly demonstrate the progress that can be made when lawyers and economists take notice of and respect the characteristics of each otherand’s discipline. Moreover, the authors show how new insights of economic theory may be integrated into the relevant legal analysis. The book will therefore be appreciated by academics, practitioners, and officials representing both fields.

More than any other area of regulation, antitrust economics shapes law and policy in the United States, the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In a number of different areas of antitrust, advances in theory and empirical work have caused a fundamental reevaluation and shift of some of the assumptions behind antitrust policy. This reevaluation has profound implications for the future of the field. The Oxford Handbook of International Antitrust Economics has collected chapters from many of the leading figures in antitrust. In doing so, this two volume Handbook provides an important reference guide for scholars, teachers, and practitioners. However, it is more than a merely reference guide. Rather, it has a number of different goals. First, it takes stock of the current state of scholarship across a number of different antitrust topics. In doing so, it relies primarily upon the economics scholarship. In some situations, though, there is also coverage of legal scholarship, case law developments, and legal policies. The second goal of the Handbook is to provide some ideas about future directions of antitrust scholarship and policy. Antitrust economics has evolved over the last 60 years. It has both shaped policy and been shaped by policy. The Oxford Handbook of International Antitrust Economics will serve as a policy and research guide of next steps to consider when shaping the future of the field of antitrust.

Explores the future of transatlantic co-operation in the context of antitrust policies towards cartels, mergers and acquisitions, and vertical restraints. Experts elucidate the changing nature of antitrust enforcement, emphasizing future multilateral and bilateral developments.