Comparison of national level legislation concerning monopoly structure in EC countries and in the USA - includes comments on relevant legislation under the sherman act and the treaty ofRome. References.

This Research Handbook offers a comprehensive and state-of-the-art collection on the competition law (antitrust) prohibition of abuse of a dominant position and monopolization. It draws from the long and influential traditions of leading jurisdictions such as the European Union and the United States to analyse applicable rules and policy in these jurisdictions. It also takes a comparative approach to identify common threads and differences.

Antitrust and competition law is a fast moving area of law and the subject of extensive academic research. The aim of this volume is to select articles as tools for understanding how antitrust and competition law is applied to unilateral conduct which is harmful to the consumer and to the competitiveness of the market. The articles examine the meaning of dominance and monopolisation and show that although legal and economic rules have been developed to establish whether undertakings hold such strong market positions, it is often difficult to determine with certainty that the undertaking being investigated meets the threshold. The various debates on pricing and non-pricing conduct are also represented as are the conflicts that have arisen regarding the exercise of intellectual property rights by powerful undertakings, particularly in the context of the new economies. The volume includes scholarly articles published on both sides of the Atlantic and enables a greater understanding of the application of antitrust and competition law from the point of view of economics and politics.

As intellectual property rights have encountered an expansive trend throughout the world, the debate on the relation between IPRs and competition law has regained enormous attention.The discussion about whether antitrust law is (or should) be the most appropriate instrument to constraint an over-expansionist application of IPRs has found strong supporters and opponents on both sides of the Atlantic.However, American courts and European agencies have adopted a quite different approach in the treatment of anticompetitive conduct favored by the exploitation of an intellectual property right. Namely, American courts have shown a tendency to refrain competition law tools from interfering with intangible monopolies, while European agencies have severely constrained monopolists' conduct that - in the most common example - use IPRs to leverage their dominant position in a second market.This paper aims at studying and comparing the diverse approaches outlined above starting the analysis from the normative and conceptual difference between American monopolization and attempt to monopolize claims and European abuse of dominant position. As we will see, significant differences exist between these doctrines which have exerted a significant impact on the way courts apply competition tools towards IPRs.

The economics of competition law has been closely related to that of monopoly and the abuse of dominant position by firms. The paper aims to bring out the role of economics in the determination of abuse of dominant position by a firm in a free market with special emphasis on the factors that are used in defining dominance explained extensively with the use of several cases decided in Indian and in European courts. It also lays down the various exclusionary pricing strategies undertaken by firms in order to exploit potential competitors and customers with a detailed analysis of exclusionary conduct. The concept of collective dominance has also been briefly dealt with, in reference to approaches used in order to determine the effects of cartelization in the market.

How does it come about that a certain firm dominates a market? Can an understanding of this process lead to a more effective enforcement of competition law? That is the question approached in this compelling book. The author reviews the European Union’s (EU’s) Article 102 case law, comparing it with United States (US) provisions, demonstrating that new ways of looking at market power are needed – today’s tech giants differ from older monopolies. He clarifies the role of dominant firms in the competitive process, proposing that conduct should be scrutinized differently depending on the source of market power, rather than using the same approach for all dominant undertakings. Supporting his contention that the legal consequences that derive from holding a dominant position cannot be disassociated from the sources of that market power—that a dynamic understanding of dominance requires looking both forwards and backwards in time—the author examines such sources of dominance as the following: ‒ statutory dominance derived from explicit protectionist measures or subtler geoeconomic strategies; ‒ legacy firms such as the telecommunications or transport industries; ‒ natural monopolies, e.g., the exploitation of a mine; ‒ investment efforts undertaken in a competitive environment; ‒ intangible resources such as timing, reputation, experience, innovation capabilities, or managerial processes; ‒ lucky monopolies; and ‒ anticompetitive behavior on the road to dominance. Drawing insights from EU and US case law, industrial organization scholarship, and strategic management literature, the book resolves questions related to the role that the origins of market power have played and should play in the enforcement of EU competition rules against dominant firms. It concludes with a list of policy recommendations bringing the application of Article 102 TFEU against dominant firms more in line with the objective of protecting the competitive process. With its focus on how EU competition law enforcement should be fine-tuned to adequately incorporate the origins of firm dominance into the analysis of single-firm behavior, the book makes a major contribution to the analysis of anticompetitive effects. Practitioners, competition authorities, and academics in competition law will greatly appreciate the book’s combination of legal analysis and recommendations for policy reform.

This essay explores two different but related problems and how U.S. antitrust law and EU competition law approach them. The first is the offense of attempt to monopolize, which concerns the acts that a firm that is not yet dominant might undertake in order to become dominant. The second is the offense of monopoly or dominant firm leveraging, which occurs when a firm uses its dominant position in one market to cause some kind of harm in a different market where it also does business. The language of EU and U.S. provisions concerning dominant firms provokes one to think that the differences between them are significant. The Sherman Act includes an express attempt to monopolize claim while Article 82 does not. Article 82's "abuse of dominance" language invites in a concept of non-monopolistic leveraging while the U.S. antitrust law is moving in the opposite direction. In practice, the differences are not so great, although they should not be minimized either. Further, when one looks at the full range of competition laws and not just the provisions respecting unilateral conduct by dominant firms, then the differences appear to result more from the happenstance of statutory drafting than from significant differences concerning the scope of unlawful single-firm conduct.

This paper reviews the various proposals to reform the merger and monopoly provisions of the Combines Investigation Act and examines the operation of the 1986 Competition Act amendments in these areas. More precisely, the paper focuses on the following points: the Combines Investigation Act; some proposals for reform; the Competitive Tribunal Act and the Competition Act; as well as the operation of the law and proposed amendments.

This paper reviews the various proposals to reform the merger and monopoly provisions of the Combines Investigation Act and examines the operation of the 1986 Competition Act amendments in these areas. More precisely, the paper focuses on the following points: the Combines Investigation Act; some proposals for reform; the Competitive Tribunal Act and the Competition Act; as well as the operation of the law.