It is rare to find an analysis as clear-sighted of the energy market regulation in Europe taking into account legal, regulatory and (geo-)political aspects. Congratulations to this contribution to the debate about regulating energy markets in the future.' - Herwig C. H. Hofmann, Professor of European and Transnational Public LawLaw and Policy of the European Gas Market examines the regulatory and competitive choices of institutions and bodies operating within the EU gas market, with a view to achieving a higher level of market integration. Offering an in-depth analysis of the design, structure and functioning of the EU gas market, the book considers the most recent European legal developments associated with this market and places them in their respective geopolitical context. This timely book contributes to the discussion surrounding the concurrent application of competition law and regulation on the EU gas market. It also provides a unique critique of the way in which competition law is used, mainly through the European Commission's so-called 'commitments practice', while looking at consumer protection and the effects of such practice on third-country transmission system operators. This book provides a unique reassessment of the role played by sector-specific regulation in achieving gas market integration and will therefore prove a valuable resource for gas market participants, policy makers and lawyers in the field. It will also be of great use to students, academics and researchers interested in the latest legislative reform of the EU gas market or 'the Third Energy Package'. Contents: 1. Introduction 2. The specifics of the EU gas market 3. Setting of relationships with natural gas producers 4. EU gas market structure 5. Defining and assessing the current EU gas market design 6. Integration of the EU gar market through administrative bodies 7. Conclusion Bibliography Annex I: Legislation applicable to the EU gas market Annex II: Case Law Index

This is an extraordinary collection of essays, most previously available only in Chinese, by the leading world authority on China's Anti-Monopoly Law. They are necessary reading for a holistic understanding of the law as a unique product of its history, its purposes and foundations, and its early applications. Probably no other scholar could produce such a thoughtful, clear, and both theoretically and practically helpful collection.' - Eleanor M. Fox, New York University School of Law, USChina's Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) is one of the youngest and most influential antitrust laws in the world today. This book aims to provide a better understanding of the evolution of China's AML to the international community, through a collection of essays from the most prominent antitrust scholar in China, Professor Xiaoye Wang. Xiaoye Wang provides a unique and invaluable 'insider perspective' into how China and its incipient antitrust regime work. This book therefore serves as a key reference text, which comprehensively outlines the historical background of China's enactment of the AML, engages in comparative legal analysis to explain the basic contents of the law, analyses its existing problems, and considers the various challenges it will face in implementation. This book also records the AML's difficult legislative journey, and reflects upon the views and different perspectives that the Chinese society has on the market economy, market competition, and other important theoretical questions. Antitrust practitioners and in-house lawyers, academics and policymakers alike will be interested in this book. China has become too important an antitrust jurisdiction, and too important a market, for any person with an interest in antitrust to ignore. Contents: 1. Why Needs China Anti-Monopoly Law? 2. Anti-monopoly Law and Building a Harmonious Society 3. Anti-monopoly Law and China's Economic Reform 4. Market Access of the Non-Public Economy and Anti-Monopoly Law 5. Legal Suggestions for Reforming Monopoly Industries 6. China's Competition Law in the Global Competition 7. The Impacts of the WTO Competition Policy Negotiation in China 8. WTO Accession and the Formulation of China s Anti-Monopoly Law 9. The Prospect of Anti-monopoly Legislation in China 10. The Goals of China s Anti-Monopoly Law 11. Anti-Monopoly Law and Industry Price Self-Discipline 12. Anti-Monopoly Regulation of the Market Behaviour of Public Utility Enterprises 13. The Legal Regulation of Administrative Restrictions on Competition 14. Anti-Monopoly Law in the Compulsory Licensing of Intellectual Property 15. Some Issues Surrounding the Anti-Monopoly Enforcement Authority in China 16. Issues Surrounding the Drafting of China's Anti-monopoly Law 17. Unfair Competition and Anti-Competition 18. Comments on Merger Control under China's Anti-monopoly Law 19. Highlights of China's New Anti-monopoly Law 20. Analysis and Comment on China's Anti-Monopoly Law 21. China's Anti-monopoly Enforcement Agency Should Say No to the BHP-Rio Tinto Merger 22. Comments on MOFCOM's Decision on Coca-Cola/Huiyuan 23. Reflections on the NDRC Case Against China Telecom and China Unicom 4. China's Anti-Monopoly Law for Three Years: Achievements and Challenges Index

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.

In the late nineteenth century a new form of capitalism emerged in Great Britain and the United States. Before the revolutions in communication and transportation, the owners of firms managed the processes of production, distribution, transportation and communication personally. By the end of the century, however, technological innovation and mass markets fostered the development of large-scale corporate structures, leading to a separation between owners and operators. In this new form of capitalist enterprise managers were increasingly the principal decision makers. This economic transformation spawned social and political tensions which compelled the public and policy makers to decide upon an appropriate response to big business. A primary focus of public discourse was antitrust. This book explores the development of big business and the antitrust response in a comparative context.

This is a very timely book which provides an unprecedented analysis of the factors which have shaped the competition law systems of ten Asian countries and Australia. The comprehensive discussion from varying viewpoints against the backdrop of the significantly different environments within which the respective regimes have developed creates a framework for the comparative assessment of competition law systems elsewhere in the world.' - Lutz-Christian Wolff, The Chinese University of Hong KongThis detailed book describes and analyses the essential political economy features that provide the backdrop to the competition policies and competition law regimes of several of the most important Asian economies. The book also discusses the impact of these political economy influences in determining whether the adopted competition policy is effective. Each of the authors - experts in their respective countries - offer specific insights into the nature and structure of their competition regimes and discuss to what extent the varied political economy factors unique to that country help to determine whether and to what extent the established system promotes or hinders economic competition in that jurisdiction. Comprising wide coverage of Asian jurisdictions, including Australia, this book will strongly appeal to students and academics of law, politics, economics and economic development, policy makers in national governments, international agencies and competition authorities, as well as practicing competition lawyers and in-house counsel. Contributors: M.F. Cheong, A. Fels, D. Fruitman, D. Healey, R.A.S. Jalit, J. Lee, Y.H. Lee, R.I. McEwin, P.S. Mehta, N.N. Sirait, T. Takigawa, S. Thanitcul, M. Williams

This indispensable Handbook examines the interface of competition policy, competition law and industrial economics.The book aims to further our understanding of how economic reasoning and legal expertise complement each other in defining the fundamental issues and principles in competition policy. In specially commissioned chapters the book provides a scholarly review of economic theory, empirical evidence and standards of legal evaluation with respect to monopolization of markets, exploitation of market power and mergers, among other issues. The International Handbook of Competition Second Edition will be accessible to a wide audience including students of economics and law, public administrators, lawyers, consultants, and business executives. Contributors: D.B. Audretsch, E.W. Bond, A.W.A. Boot, V. Ghosal, R. Griffith, K. Huschelrath, C. Kirchner, M. Marinc, S. Martin, D.C. Mueller, L. Nesheim, M. Neumann, A. Rasch, A. Rathbone, C. Rowley, A. Wambach, J. Weigand, B.B. Yurtoglu

This outstanding collection of original essays brings together some of the leading experts in competition economics, policy and law. They examine what lies at the core of the 'economic approach to competition law' and deal with its normative and institutional limitations. In recent years the more 'economic approach' has led to a modernization of competition law throughout the world. This book comprehensively examines for the first time, the foundations and limitations of the approach and will be of great interest to scholars of competition policy no matter what discipline. Competition Policy and the Economic Approach will appeal to academics in competition economics and law, policy-makers and practitioners in the field of antitrust/competition law as well as postgraduate students in competition law and economics. Those interested in the interplay of law and economics in the field of competition will also find this book invaluable. Contributors: O. Budzinski, U. Cantner, J. Drexl, C. Engel, A. Fuchs, J. Haucap, A. Heinemann, L. Idot, W. Kerber, W.E. Kovacic, R. Podszun, M. Polo, D.L. Rubinfeld, D. Schroeder, V.J. Vanberg, G.J. Werden, B.J. Wilson, D. Zimmer

Much of antitrust law scholarship has focused on substantive legal issues - theories of harm and changing law and policy. Surprisingly, there has been very little work that is comparative, on a fundamental element that is a critical building block to effective policy - procedural fairness. Procedural fairness encompasses issues of transparency and due process. Procedural fairness has been an important issue in global antitrust for some time. The types of due process concerns raised globally often relate to the lack of effective representation, the use of industrial policy by third parties, and procedural tools that do not allow for the most effective advocacy to lead to efficient outcomes. This book focuses on these issues and teases out common problems and distinct issues in particular jurisdictions, allowing for a rethink of creating a more effective system for procedural fairness, and explores these issues in each jurisdiction, along with highlights of particular cases in which due process issues have emerged.

State aid policy is based upon the principle of European Community supervision of assistance granted by the Member States, or through State resources in whatever form. It threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods. This volume deals with the question how an appropriate balance can be struck between trade liberalization and the role of the State in the economy.

This comprehensive Handbook brings together contributions from American, Canadian, European, and Japanese writers to better explore the interface between competition and intellectual property law. Issues range from the fundamental to the specific, each considered from the angle of cartels, dominant positions, and mergers. Topics covered include, among others, technology licensing, the doctrine of exhaustion, network industries, innovation, patents, and copyright. Appropriate space is devoted to the latest developments in European and American antitrust law, such as the 'more economic approach' and the question of anti-competitive abuses of intellectual property rights. Each original chapter reflects extensive comments by all other contributors, an approach which ensures a diversity of perspectives within a systematic framework. These cutting edge articles will be of great interest to law professors and postgraduate students of intellectual property and competition law, as well as those interested in innovation and competition theory, and legal practices in intellectual property and competition law.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) voluntary peer reviews of competition law and policies are conducted at annual meetings of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy or at five-yearly United Nations Conferences to Review the United Nations Set. The substantive preparation was carried out by the Competition and Consumer Policies Branch (CCPB) of UNCTAD under the direction of Teresa Moreira, Head of CCPB. This report was prepared for UNCTAD by Maria Leonila Papa. The substantive backstopping and review of the report was the responsibility of Dr. Pierre Horna and Elizabeth Gachuiri, assisted by Hyejong Kwon, Competition and Consumer Policies Branch, under the guidance of Teresa Moreira, Head of the Branch, UNCTAD. Elona Lazaj assisted in coordinating the process with the Bangladesh Competition Commission and the consultant as part of the UNCTAD team for the Bangladesh peer review on competition policy

This comprehensive research Handbook brings together cutting-edge legal and economic analysis into antitrust issues by leading experts from Europe, the USA, Canada, Mexico and South America. The Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust covers a wide-range of areas including: * the meaning of consumer welfare * mergers in monopsony markets * unilateral effects * private and criminal enforcement * implementing competition policy in regulated sectors * abuse of intellectual property rights * competition remedies * international enforcement cooperation * complainants' rights * dominant firm pricing * tying and bundling. The Handbook also includes discursive consideration of the similarities and differences among the various regimes on either side of the Atlantic, as well as a look to future trends and applications in regional and global contexts. Offering a comparative view of pressing antitrust issues, this Handbook will be of great interest to academics, lawyers, practitioners and officials.

This fascinating book explores the management of the internal market from a legal perspective. While the EU agenda is currently dominated by the processes of Treaty reform, this assessment of both market and constitutional governance evaluates the coherence or otherwise of the project at the very core of European integration. Confronted with a free market nearing completion, with a relatively formulaic application of internal market law, the book portrays how this is mirrored in a growing tendency to hand the market 'back' to the Member States and, increasingly, to authorities and bodies (both public and private) therein. We see too, however, an internal market framework that strains to cope with a series of challenges, both internal and external to the EU itself. The approach of the contributors is twofold - on one hand they reflect thematically on questions of regulation which cut across the spectrum of the market and its freedoms. On the other hand they adopt more sector-specific lenses (including, for example, regulation of the media and the Internet) through which contemporary regulatory dynamics can be reconsidered. Providing analysis of contemporary challenges facing the internal market, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students working in the field of EC law. It will also appeal to national and Community policy makers as it seeks to locate the constitutional and regulatory boundaries of the internal market sphere.

This timely work examines the interplay between intellectual property protection and antitrust rules in the communications industry, with particular focus upon the role of externalities in that interplay. There is substantial discussion of the innovation process and of how companies leverage their intellectual property rights in order to obtain market leadership. Particular emphasis is also placed upon how legal doctrines have developed to cope with these issues, and related economic analysis is also discussed.

Global competition now shapes economies and societies in ways unimaginable only a few years ago, and laws shape and maintain global competition, determining how effective global markets are and how they distribute benefits and harms. Competition (or "antitrust") law plays a central role in this framework of law. These laws are intended to protect the competitive process from distortion and restraint, and in the domestic context, they embody and reflect the relationships between markets, their participants and those affected by them.
On the global level, however, competition law is provided by those players that have sufficient "power" to apply their laws transnationally. In practice, this means that the US and the EU generally provide the competition law principles for global competition. This book examines this important and controversial aspect of globalization.
Part I examines the evolution of the current system of competition law for global markets, the factors that have shaped it, and how it operates today. There was once a widespread belief that harm to global competition was an international problem that should be addressed through international coordination, but the Cold War submerged this ideal and led to the current system. Since the 1990s efforts have been made to develop transnational cooperation in this area, but the basic system remains in place. The evolution and operation of this system cannot be understood without understanding the factors in national experience that have shaped them.
The second part of the book focuses on these national experiences and the roles they have played in the evolution of the global system. It examines US and Europeanexperience as well as the experience of the newer players such as China that will necessarily play major roles in the future.
Finally, the book examines the potential for creating a system that functions more effectively and provides more support for global economic and political development. Drawing on parts I and II and on social science as well as legal literature, it identifies the factors that will play a role in moving towards a more effective legal framework for global competition and suggests a pathway for needed reforms.

Industrial consolidation, digital platforms, and changing political views have spurred debate about the interplay between public and private power in the United States and have created a bipartisan appetite for potential antitrust reform that would mark the most profound shift in US competition policy in the past half-century. While neo-Brandeisians call for a reawakening of antitrust in the form of a return to structuralism and a concomitant rejection of economic analysis founded on competitive effects, proponents of the status quo look on this state of affairs with alarm. Scrutinizing the latest evidence, Alan J. Devlin finds a middle ground. US antitrust laws warrant revision, he argues, but with far more nuance than current debates suggest. He offers a new vision of antitrust reform, achieved by refining our enforcement policies and jettisoning an unwarranted obsession with minimizing errors of economic analysis.

Delving into export restrictive measures this book links the key areas of WTO law, public international law, investment and competition law to expose how and why WTO rules on export dimension are insufficient due to export bias; how public international law helps to justify their adoption or maintenance; and how investment and competition laws contribute to their regulation. Built on works on accession protocols and national security exceptions, this book goes beyond international trade law and looks into international political economy, competition and investment law. It contributes to debates in conceptualising public and private forms of export restrictions, appreciating the complementary nature of trade and competition law in disciplining them; capturing the dynamic between trade and investment policies for their effectuation and circumvention; and bridging trade law and public international law to better understand their impositions for political and diplomatic purposes with the invocation of the national security justification.

The Politics of European Competition Regulation provides an original and theoretically informed account of the political power struggles that have shaped the evolution of European competition regulation over the past six decades. Applying a critical political economy perspective, this book analyses the establishment and development of competition regulation at European Community and national level since the 1950s. It puts forth the central argument that competition regulation came to reflect the broader shift towards a neoliberal order since the 1980s. Buch-Hansen and Wigger argue that this shift, which took place against the background of the gradual transnationalisation of capitalist production and the economic crisis of the late 1970s, was driven by the European Commission in alliance with the emerging transnational capitalist class. The authors examine the political responses to the current global economic crisis in the fields of state aid, cartel prosecution and merger control and conclude that an alternative type of competition regulation, which forms part of a much broader transformation of the current socioeconomic order, is needed. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of (global) political economy, European integration and competition law.

Asian Capitalism and the Regulation of Competition explores the implications of Asian forms of capitalism and their regulation of competition for the emerging global competition law regime. Expert contributors from a variety of backgrounds explore the topic through the lenses of formal law, soft law and transnational regulation, and make extensive comparisons with Euro-American and global models. Case studies include Japan, China and Vietnam, and thematic studies include examinations of competition law's relationship with other regulatory terrains such as public law, market culture, regulatory geography and transnational production networks.

This book is Volume I of a two-volume set on antitrust policy, analyzing the economic efficiency and moral desirability of various tests for antitrust legality, including those promulgated by US and EU antitrust law. The overall study consists of three parts. Part I (Chapters 1-8) introduces readers to the economic, moral, and legal concepts that play important roles in antitrust-policy analysis. Part II (Chapters 9-16) analyzes the impacts of eight types of conduct covered by antitrust policy and various possible government responses to such conduct in terms of economic efficiency, the securing of liberal moral rights, and the instantiation of various utilitarian, non-utilitarian-egalitarian, and mixed conceptions of the moral good. Part III (Chapters 17-18) provides detailed information on US antitrust law and EU competition law, and compares the extent to which-when correctly interpreted and applied-these two bodies of law could ensure economic efficiency, protect liberal moral rights, and instantiate various morally defensible conceptions of the moral good. This first volume contains Part I and the first two chapters of Part II of the overall study-the two chapters that focus on oligopolistic and predatory conduct of all kinds, respectively. The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students of economics and law who are interested in welfare economics, antitrust legality and the General Theory of the Second Best.

This monograph addresses two problems surrounding the interpretation and application of Article 81 of the EC Treaty - what is competition and how does Article 81 ensure that competition is protected. After over 40 years of application and a period of modernisation, decentralisation, and reflection, it is possible to understand Article 81 and what it seeks to achieve. The monograph's aim is to reveal the intellectual order and rational structure underlying the law so as to enable the reader to understand Article 81 in a clear and rigorous manner. This is done by breaking Article 81 down into its constituent elements and examining the function that each element serves. Arguing that jurisdiction rests on a public/private distinction, both the substantive and the justificatory rules are cast to generate obligations appropriate for private actors to perform. Actors and activities falling within the scope of Article 81 are subject to the substantive element prohibiting contrived reductions in output. Since output reduction can co-exist with cost reduction/innovation, and that these latter features are desirable, cost reduction and innovation operate to justify infringement of the substantive obligation. Thus this monograph argues that output, cost and innovation are the only legitimate issues in an Article 81 analysis. It is in this sense that the monograph is concerned with the boundaries of Article 81 EC.