4. What is the optimal level of enforcement?

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Ariel Ezrachi
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Optimal Level ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Economic Understanding ◽  
Competitive Activities

‘What is the optimal level of enforcement?’ focuses on competition law enforcement. All competition jurisdictions acknowledge the central and crucial role of economic analysis in shaping competition prosecution. Greater economic understanding has improved the structure of competition law through legal presumptions and thresholds, enforcement guidelines, and a greater understanding of the gravity and consequences of anti-competitive activities. Indeed, there has been an ever-increasing ‘economization’ of antitrust, as more jurisdictions rely on economic analysis to determine whether intervention is needed. When markets work well, competition enforcers are better off adopting a ‘laissez-faire’ approach (leaving the market to take its own course). Distinguishing pro-competitive activities from anti-competitive activities poses a challenge.

Competition law and digital ecosystems: Learning to walk before we run

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic Jenny
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
Competitive Strategies ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Competition Analysis ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Platforms And Ecosystems ◽  
Traditional Competition

Abstract The paper analyzes the challenges faced by competition authorities with respect to the digital sector. Borrowing insights from the business policy literature and from the economic literature, the paper first analyzes the specificities of digital firms (multi-sided platforms and ecosystems) with respect to their development and competitive strategies. Building on this foundation the paper explores some of the challenges of applying traditional competition analysis to competition in the business sector. We then discuss a number of issues relevant to competition law enforcement in the digital sector starting with the role of data, competition within ecosystems and between ecosystems, consumer biases, and the role of gatekeepers. We conclude with a research agenda for economists and competition authorities.

6 Industrial Policy and Competition Law Enforcement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Thomas K
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Government Planning ◽  
National Champions ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the role of industrial policy in developing countries. On the one hand, industrial policy is arguably the antithesis of competition law and policy. Industrial policy substitutes government planning for competition and is vehemently opposed if not maligned by adherents of free market economics. Industrial policy as practiced in some countries such as Japan and Korea have entailed government-organized cartels and the grooming of national champions, both of which are direct affronts to the notion of competition. On the other hand, to the defenders of industrial policy, it has successfully lifted a number of Asian countries out of poverty and turned them into industrial and technological powerhouses. However, even the extent to which the success of these economies can be attributed to industrial policy is highly contested. There are hence two layers to the controversy. The first is whether industrial policy worked at all. The second is even if it did, whether a growth strategy relying on competition is superior to industrial policy, and if not, how competition law enforcement should accommodate industrial policy.

Skanska: are jurisdiction challenges now an impossible undertaking?

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Andrew Leitch
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Member State ◽  
National Court ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Eu Competition Law ◽  
Industrial Solutions

Claimants in private damages actions following on from European Commission cartel decisions are often faced with a choice of jurisdiction in which to pursue their claims. However, seising jurisdiction in the national court of a desired Member State can require the claim to be pursued against an anchor defendant that is not an addressee of a Commission decision. This may, in the English courts, give rise to various disputes as to the role of that non-addressee defendant in the cartel and, accordingly, whether a claim can in fact be sustained as against that defendant. The Court of Justice's recent judgment in Vantaan Kaupunki v Skanska Industrial Solutions potentially relieves claimants from the burden of having to establish that the non-addressee defendant participated in, or implemented, the cartel in order to sustain a claim against it, by holding that it is entire undertakings that are liable for compensation in private damages actions. The Skanska judgment harmonizes the scope of liability under the public and private spheres of EU competition law enforcement and has potentially significant ramifications for competition litigation in the English courts.

The Emerging Contribution of Director Disqualification in UK Competition Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 283-310
Author(s):  
Peter Whelan
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Enforcement Mechanism ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Normative Role ◽  
Competition Enforcement

Peter Whelan assesses a developing and increasingly significant enforcement tool in the UK competition authority’s armoury in Chapter 11. In it, Whelan notes that the enforcement of UK competition law is deterrence-focused and comprises both criminal and non-criminal (i.e. civil/administrative) elements. The chapter concentrates on the non-criminal enforcement apparatus that has been developed over the last twenty years. More specifically, it critically evaluates a particular enforcement mechanism that has been gaining increasing importance throughout the recent development of UK competition enforcement practice: the use of director disqualification. It first establishes the normative role of director disqualification in the UK’s armoury of non-criminal antitrust sanctions (i.e. its complementing of the deterrent function of corporate antitrust fines), following which it highlights their potential for performing this role effectively. It then outlines the legal basis for the use of director disqualification within the UK and evaluates the policy and enforcement practice to date with respect to such orders, before proceeding to outline some of the insights that the UK director disqualification regime can provide to other jurisdictions. Ultimately it concludes that, on the basis of the promising, albeit nascent, UK experience to date, director disqualification should be seriously considered by jurisdictions that wish to operate a robust competition law enforcement regime.

European Union competition law in the digital era

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Kadar
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Policy ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Specific Regulation ◽  
European Competition Law ◽  
Union Competition

AbstractWhat is the role of European competition policy in the digital economy? Even if it cannot deal with all perceived issues in digital markets, competition law enforcement is the appropriate tool to remedy distortions to competition caused by market power, without the introduction of pervasive ex-ante sector-specific regulation being required. Whilst some of the proposals for reform of the European competition law legal framework recently brought may have some merit in principle, the current regime appears to be suitable and sufficiently flexible to allow the Commission to intervene effectively and remedy competitive distortions in digital markets.

scholarly journals Gerichtsstandsklauseln in der privaten Durchsetzung des EU-Kartellrechts

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polina Westerhoven
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Private Enforcement ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Rules ◽  
Damage Claims

This book explores the issues surrounding cartel damage claims from an EU law perspective. It follows an analysis of the existing EU legal framework for private competition law enforcement with a thorough examination of the relevant rules on international jurisdiction. Against this background, the author focuses on the role of jurisdiction agreements in the area of private enforcement. The study covers both the choice of Member State courts as well as the prorogation of third state forums and provides an interesting perspective on the various questions that arise in this context. With regard to the highly debated issue of the interpretation of choice-of-court clauses, it highlights the need to observe the guidelines deriving from the Brussels I Regulation itself. It furthermore outlines the system applicable to third state prorogations and examines how to deal with situations in which the choice of a third state forum may lead to the circumvention of EU competition rules.

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