Federal Antitrust And Ec Competition Law Analysis

This book provides the reader with a comprehensive analysis of US Federal Antitrust and EC Competition Law. It is encyclopaedic in coverage: examining every constituent element of the law and landmark decisions from the perspectives of economics and policy goals, explaining their implications for commercial operations and advocating policy reforms where necessary.

Although it is commonly assumed that consumers benefit from the application of competition law, this is not necessarily always the case. Economic efficiency is paramount; thus, competition law in Europe and antitrust law in the United States are designed primarily to protect business competitors (and in Europe to promote market integration), and it is only incidentally that such law may also serve to protect consumers. That is the essential starting point of this penetrating critique. The author explores the extent to which US antitrust law and EC competition law adequately safeguard consumer interests. Specifically, he shows how the two jurisdictions have gone about evaluating collusive practices, abusive conduct by dominant firms and merger activity, and how the policies thus formed have impacted upon the promotion of consumer interests. He argues that unless consumer interests are directly and specifically addressed in the assessment process, maximization of consumer welfare is not sufficiently achieved. Using rigorous analysis he develops legal arguments that can accomplish such goals as the following: replace the economic theory of ‘consumer welfare’ with a principle of consumer well-being; build consumer benefits into specific areas of competition policy; assess competition cases so that income distribution effects are more beneficial to consumers; and control mergers in such a way that efficiencies are passed directly to consumers. The author argues that, in the last analysis, the promotion of consumer well-being should be the sole or at least the primary goal of any antitrust regime. Lawyers and scholars interested in the application and development and reform of competition law and policy will welcome this book. They will find not only a fresh approach to interpretation and practice in their field – comparing and contrasting two major systems of competition law – but also an extremely lucid analysis of the various economic arguments used to highlight the consumer welfare enhancing or welfare reducing effects of business practices.

The book is warmly recommended to practitioners and academics from both the legal and the economic field. Guido Westkamp, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice . . . Glader offers strong commentary and case explanation, coupled with insightful analysis, in this complex area. . . This book is strong on both the relevant law, and the economics arena in which the law must be applied, and deals equally well with the US and EC principles and practice. Mark Furse, European Competition Law Review The pace and scope of technological change is increasing, but some innovative technologies take years before they give rise to saleable products. Before they do, there is competition in ideas and research, but the ideas cannot be market tested, because there are no products or services to offer to consumers. Competition law, in Europe and the USA, cannot be applied to competition in research for innovation as if it was competition between products. Completely different problems arise and a completely different approach is needed. This book, the first on innovation markets, shows how this new approach has been used by competition authorities on both sides of the Atlantic in a wide variety of cases. It analyses in depth and detail the comparative law and economics of the problems arising from the different stages of these markets . It considers how far conclusions can be drawn about the future and comes to interesting, practical and sensible conclusions. And it avoids both unjustified scepticism and exaggerated enthusiasm about the theories of innovation markets. John Temple Lang, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels and London; Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Oxford University, UK This book examines the legal standards and their underlying economic rationale for the protection of competition in the innovation process, in both European competition law and American antitrust law. Apart from relevant regulatory frameworks, the author also reviews a range of case laws, which assess whether a transaction or unilateral conduct would limit market participants incentives and abilities for continued innovation and future competition. At the centre of this study is the innovation market concept. This concept entails the delineation, for purposes of antitrust analysis, of an upstream market for competing R&D. Questions of market definition, the assessment of innovation competition in defined markets, the role of efficiencies in the appraisal of transactions and possible remedies to alleviate anti-competitive effects are also explored. Updating the field of research in light of new developments and broadening and deepening the categorization and analysis of the innovation market area, this book will be of great interest to academics, practitioners and consultants, and also public policymakers.

. . . a must-read for anyone wanting to study tying in more detail. . . the book offers a very thorough analysis of tying, together with some recommended improvements to the way in which tying is currently assessed under the EU and the US antitrust rules. Common Market Law Review Schmidt s Competition Law, Innovation and Antitrust is a superb introduction to the subject of tying arrangements and other bundled sales in high technology markets, principally as they are treated under US antitrust law and EU competition law. Schmidt thoroughly assesses the economics of such arrangements, the benefits they confer and the potential harms they impose, and then gives a positive introduction to the law. This is a comprehensive treatment of its subject and an indispensible aid to the competition law scholar or practitioner. Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa, College of Law, US This innovative book assesses the hotly debated topic of tying from three different perspectives: competition law, economics and intellectual property rights. It highlights the faults and benefits of the current approaches to tying under EC competition law and US antitrust law. In the light of modern economic thinking, the recent review of Article 82 EC, and Sherman Act, Section 2, the author identifies a more economic approach to tying that moves away from the per se illegality label that has so far impinged on tying case law. Hedvig Schmidt recognizes the significance that tying can play on innovation and product development, and thus suggests a new approach which carves out a safe haven for technological integrated products to ensure continuous stimulation of innovation. With comparative assessments and investigations, this book is a must-read for academics specializing in competition law and theory, as well as practitioners and policy-makers of competition law and intellectual property.

The EU and the US are the preeminent examples of multi-level polities and both have highly developed competition policies. Despite these similarities however, recent developments suggest that they are moving in different directions in the area of antitrust federalism. This book examines multi-level governance in competition policy from a comparative perspective. The book analyses how competition laws and authorities of different levels - the federal and the state levels in the US and the national and the supranational levels in the EU - interact with each other. Inspired by the increasingly divergent policy developments taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, the author asks whether the EU and the US can draw policy lessons from each other’s experiences in antitrust federalism. Antitrust Federalism in the EU and the US reveals the similarities and differences between the European and American models of antitrust federalism whilst employing policy network models in its comparative analysis of issues such as opacity and accountability in networks. The book is essentially multidisciplinary in its effort to initiate dialogue between the Law and Political Science literatures in this field. This book will be of particular interest to academics, students and practitioners of Competition Law, Constitutional Law and Political Science.

By examining the issue of collusion in EU and US competition law, this book suggests possible strategies for improving the antitrust enforcement against parallelism, by exploiting the most advanced achievements of economic analysis. The book contains a suggested approach to collusion, in ex ante and ex post perspectives. By moving from the analysis of the state of art, in terms of law, case law, and scholarship, Marilena Filippelli analyses inconsistencies and failures in the current antitrust enforcement toward collusion and develops a workable parameter for the issue of collective dominance. The most innovative part of this work goes beyond the analysis itself of collective dominance and involves the interference of arts. 101 and 102. The conclusion is a re-definition of the relationship between those rulesÑfrom dichotomy to redundancy. Finally, the book highlights the antitrust significance of semi-collusion, as a strategy made of collusion and competition. The author considers economic models equaling, as for the effects, collusion and semi-collusion and the case law supporting the qualification of semi-collusion as a species of collusion. The analysis involves both US and EU systems, under the highly topical economic-oriented approach. It also contains an original view of European antitrust prohibitions. Because of its contents and its approach, this book will be attractive to every academic interested in antitrust law. Moreover, the well-documented research on parallelism, involving law, case law and scholarship, makes this book interesting also for competition authorities and antitrust lawyers.

Comparative Competition Law examines the key global issues facing competition law and policy. This volume’s specially commissioned chapters by leading writers from the United States, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia provide a synthesis of how these current issues are addressed by drawing on the approaches taken in different jurisdictions around the world. Expert contributors examine the regulation of core competitive conduct by comparing substantive law approaches in the US and the EU. The book then explores issues of enforcement – such as the regulator’s powers, whether to criminalize anti-competitive conduct, the degree to which private enforcement ought to be encouraged, and the extraterritorial scope of domestic laws. Finally, the book discusses how competition law is being implemented in a variety of countries, including Japan, China, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. This scholarly analysis of the key substantive, procedural, and remedial challenges facing global competition law policymakers offers a comparative framework to facilitate a better understanding of relevant policies. This collection of global perspectives will be of great interest to scholars and students of competition law, microeconomics, and regulatory studies. Competition law regulators, policy makers, and law practitioners will also find this book an invaluable resource.