The Law Relating To Restrictive Trade Practices And Monopolies Mergers Take Overs In New Zealand

A study of the law relating to competition i.e. relationship between competitors in trade and commerce and the protection of private and public interests.

A collection of 13 essays from judges, lawyers, economists, policy-makers, enforcement officials and academics which explores and analyses competition law and policy. Contributors include Miriam R Dean, Hunter M Donaldson, Warren J Pengilley and Maureen Brunt.

The modern era of competition law in New Zealand began with the Commerce Act 1986. Since then, a steady and impressive corpus of case law had traversed all the usual major areas of antitrust law: cartels, resale price maintenance, exclusive dealing, tying, group boycotts, monopolization, mergers and acquisitions, exempted sectors, and the role of economic evidence. This volume explains the rationale for the various major reforms, the ongoing contestation between the Harvard and Chicago Schools of antitrust, and traces the developments of key concepts over the last 34 years. This title also explores systemic issues such as how well has New Zealand moulded its own competition law whilst nonetheless selectively drawing upon the policies, case law, and wisdom of foreign jurisdictions; how effectively has it faced the challenge of adapting its fledgling competition law to the reality of being a small, deregulated, open, and distant economy; and how successful was the application of competition law to utilities in the experimental era of 'light handed regulation'. Written by a New Zealand competition expert, this detailed, original, and comprehensive chronicle of New Zealand's competition law and policy draws together the common threads that mark the modern era and offers some predictions about how the next decades of New Zealand competition law might unfold.

This book presents a collection of papers which evaluate the achievements of the Australian Trade Practices Act 1974 in making Australian markets more competitive. The contributors have all played major roles in Australian and New Zealand antitrust actions, either as expert economic witnesses, as antitrust enforcers, as judges or as quasi-judicial administrators. No other publication presents such in-depth economic analysis of the Act and the cases decided under it in its first two decades of its operation. As well as an introductory paper, this collection includes a foreword by the Hon. George Gear, Assistant Treasurer of the Australian Government and Minister responsible for the administration of the Act, plus two broad analytical overviews of the last two decades of Australian antitrust actions by two economists who have continually been at the heart of antitrust proceedings. In addition, papers are provided which give a judicial view of the Act and economic analysis, which compare the Act with its New Zealand counterpart. Other contributions look in detail at those sections of the Act which cover mergers, misuse of market power, price-fixing and vertical practices. The book shows that the Act has had a major impact on Australian market behavior. Judges, lawyers and economists between them have produced a truly Australian approach to antitrust, which has reflected overseas trends in both law and economics, as well as developed a unique Australian flavor. The book will be of interest to academic and practicing lawyers and economists, judges and corporate executives. It will be essential reading for Australian students in undergraduate courses in antitrust law, business regulation, antitrust economics and industrial organization. It provides by far the most comprehensive economic evaluation of Australian antitrust yet published and so will be the definitive source of information on this topic for non-Australians interested in comparative antitrust legislation and enforcement issues.