New Horizons in Competition Law and Economics series – serie

In this provocative book Calixto Salomao Filho builds a strong case for why economic power cannot be considered a mere market phenomenon. Taking the forgotten realities and effects of these power structures into account, his comprehensive legal analysis persuasively argues the need for a new theory of economic power. The book begins with a discussion of the insufficiency of antitrust concepts and instruments. The author provides an economic history of monopolistic colonial systems and its effect on the development process, and offers an alternate paradigm of legal structuralism and social organization. He goes on to explore the creation of economic power structures with a cogent discussion of market power, legal structures and the dominance of common pool resources. An examination of the dynamics and behavior of power structures follows, with particular attention paid to exclusion and collusion, legal monopolies and the exploitation of natural resources. The author shows clearly how the negative effects of economic power structures directly impact the social and economic development of societies. This new legal theory, with its basis in the realities of economic structures, will prove a powerful alternative to the traditional market rationality paradigm. As such it will be of great interest to students and scholars of law and economics, development and antitrust.

Cartels, Competition and Public Procurement uses a law and economics approach to analyse whether competition and public procurement laws in Europe and Asia deal effectively with bid rigging conspiracies.Stefan Weishaar explores the ways in which economic theory can be used to mitigate the adverse effects of bid rigging cartels. The study sheds light on one of the vital issues for achieving cost-effective public procurement - which is itself a critical question in the context of the global financial crisis. The book comprehensively examines whether different laws deal effectively with bid rigging and the ways in which economic theory can be used to mitigate the adverse effects of such cartels. The employed industrial economics and auction theory highlights shortcomings of the law in all three jurisdictions - the European Union, China and Japan - and seeks to raise the awareness of policymakers as to when extra precautionary measures against bid rigging conspiracies should be taken.Students and researchers who have a keen interest in the relationship between law and economics, competition law and public procurement law will find this topical book invaluable. Practitioners can see how economic theory can be used to identify situations that lend themselves to bid rigging and policymakers will be informed about the shortcomings of existing legislation from a legal and economics perspective and will be inspired by approaches taken in different jurisdictions.Contents: 1. Introduction Part I: Economic Theory 2. Economic Theory on Optimal Deterrence and Enforcement 3. Industrial Economics 4. Auction Theory and Collusion Part II: Legal Analysis 5. The Effectiveness of the Legal Regime Applicable to Bid Rigging in the European Union 6. Application of Auction Theory in Europe 7. The Effectiveness of the Legal Regime Applicable to Bid Rigging in China 8. Application of Auction Theory in China 9. The Effectiveness of the Legal Regime Applicable to Bid Rigging in Japan 10. The Japanese Construction Sector 11. Limits of Economic Theories and Concluding Remarks Appendix 1. Europe - An Overview of Public Procurement Law Appendix 2. China - An Overview of Public Procurement Law Appendix 3. History of Japanese Antitrust Legislation References Index

The Conceptual Structure of EU Competition Law provides a systematic overview of the key theoretical issues of restrictive agreements, by means of doctrinal analysis and comparative law.Engaging in both positivist and evaluative approaches, Csongor István Nagy conceptualizes the case-law in practical terms, outlining its paradigmatic changes and apparent contradictions. Chapters explore the purpose of competition law and the structure of competition analysis; the categories of anticompetitive object; the delimitation of object and non-object agreements; the borderline and recently emerged or emerging categories; the analytical framework of effects-analysis; and the consideration of general societal values. Nagy proposes key amendments, such as a balanced approach to formalism and substantiveness, a consistent concept of anticompetitive object, a sliding scale approach to effects-analysis, and a structuralist construction for exemption.This book is an essential resource for academics and students in competition and antitrust law and European law. Its analysis of critical case-laws is also invaluable to legal professionals and practitioners in the field.

Standardization under EU Competition Rules and US Antitrust Laws is a comprehensive and detailed legal analysis of standard-setting procedure and the regulation of standard essential patents. It deals with the competition law aspects of competitors' collaboration to create technical standards, as well as the contentious antitrust issues regarding access to standards and standard essential patents.The book shows that there is a clear difference between how standardization is scrutinized and judged in the two jurisdictions. In general, US courts use intellectual property law to address access to standard essential patents, while European courts utilize antitrust rules. Both avenues hold their specific benefits and disadvantages. However, the dichotomy between the tools used in the two jurisdictions also, according to the author, mirror a more fundamental change in attitude to central notions and values such as property, fairness, equity, public interest and competition.Offering in-depth analysis of the case law currently being written in courtrooms all over the world under the so-called 'patent war', the book puts forward a new method for applying competition law to standards and standard-setting - in both its collusive and monopolistic aspects - that will be of special interest to students, academics and practitioners.

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 of collective dominance itself and involves the interference of arts. 101 and 102. The conclusion is a re-definition of the relationship between those rules - from 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 equalling, 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.Contents: Introduction Part I: Parallelism in US Competition Law 1. US Antitrust Policy Towards Parallelism: The Ex Post Enforcement 2. The US Merger Policy Towards Collusion Part II: Parallelism in EU Competition Law 3. First Evidence of the 'Oligopoly Problem- in the Enforcement of EU Antitrust Laws 4. The First Stage of EU Oligopoly Control: Shaping the Category of Collective Dominance 5. Airtours and its Aftermath Part III: A Suggested Approach to Collective Dominance 6. Coordinated Effects in EU Merger Control 7. Abuses of Collective Dominance Section I: Taxonomy of Collective Dominance Section 2: Dealing with Tacit Collusion 8. Lessons from Collective Dominance: Re-thinking the Relationship of Articles 101 and 102 Concluding Remarks: EU and US Approach to the Oligopoly Problem: An Economic-based Trend toward Convergence Bibliography Index

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the economic and competition policy issues that buyer power creates. Drawing on economic analysis and cases from around the world, it explains why conventional seller side standards and analyses do not provide an adequate framework for responding to the problems that buyer power can create. Based on evidence that abuse of buyer power is a serious problem for the competitive process, the book evaluates the potential for competition law to deal directly with the problems of abuse either through conventional competition law or special rules aimed at abusive conduct. Peter C. Carstensen's expert analysis uses the policy goal of preserving and protecting the competitive process as a guide, and evaluates competition law and policy found around the world for diverse perspectives. He identifies and evaluates controls beyond conventional competition rules and makes recommendations for competition policy, including focus on limiting the emergence of undue buyer power, strict controls limiting the size of legitimate buyer groups, prohibition in most instances of buyer cartels, and strict standards to bar mergers creating buyer power to provide a set of policies that can constrain the risks of undue buyer power. Competition law scholars, competition law practitioners, staff of competition enforcement agencies, economists interested in competition policy, and agricultural economists interested in market systems will all find this book a strong resource.

Theoretical discussions among competition lawyers and economists on the approach to Resale resale Price price Maintenance maintenance (RPM) and Vertical vertical Territorial territorial Restrictions restrictions (VTR) have often caused controversy. However, commentators agree that there is a lack of comprehensive study surrounding the topic. This book explores these two forms of anticompetitive conduct from legal, historical, economical, and theoretical points of view, focusing on the EU and US experiences.The author expertly goes beyond the current legal practice to explain, among other things, what approach should apply to RPM and VTR, and why RPM and VTR are introduced in situations where procompetitive theories would not make economic sense, or do not apply in practice. The book takes account of economic values, such as efficiency and welfare, as well as other values, such as freedom, fairness and free competition.Scholars and students of law will find the book's depth of legal, economic and historical analysis to be a rich contribution to the scholarship. This book will also be of use to EU and US practitioners, and enforcers dealing with RPM and VTR cases.

Due to disagreement between policymakers and innovation economists, antitrust agencies have been rather confused over when and how to use competition law in reference to research and development (R&D) joint ventures and collaborations. This important book dissects the antitrust treatment, in the USA and under EU law, of joint R&D ventures from the 1970s to the present day. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the modifications and amendments made to legal acts and guidelines. It also looks at the slow shift in the scant case law detected both under the antitrust laws of the USA and the competition rules of the EU.Björn Lundqvist demonstrates that the prevailing antitrust policies towards R&D collaborations are very similar in the USA and the EU, and that they both mirror a lenient attitude towards collaboration between competitors. Nonetheless, ultimately, the book shows that a more stringent attitude from the antitrust establishment can be discerned, and that the concept of the innovation market could possibly soon have a revival.This fascinating book caters to both researchers and practitioners in competition law and economics. The easy-to-follow chart and boxes will be particularly useful for practitioners when setting up R&D joint ventures.

This ambitious analysis is centered on the evolution of economic structures in colonized economies, showing the effects of these structures on today's global reality for all economies, whether they are considered 'developed or 'underdeveloped.'With a comprehensive scope encompassing economic structures and their influence on the growth of nations from past to present, Calixto Salomão Filho delves into issues of development, economic structures, social problems, monopolies, globalization, and poverty. This book features a unique combination of economic and legal analysis of development, including the examination of underdevelopment trends based on monopoly growth and the triple drain effects of monopolies on national economies. The result is an illuminating study of historical restriction and exploitation and its impact on present day markets around the world.Monopolies and Underdevelopment will capture the interest of scholars and readers of the economic theory of development, economic history of underdeveloped countries, and law and development; as well as those involved in Latin American and South Asian studies, international comparative law, and legal history.

The maintenance of a fair, competitive market among member states is critical to the functioning of the EU economy. In this book, the first comprehensive, unifying view of market definition, Miguel Ferro adeptly explores the different economic-legal issues that arise in EU competition law. Featuring an exhaustive analysis of European case law, this astute work provides a succinct and nuanced guide to market definition within a variety of markets and contexts. Insightful and timely, it explores the different economic-legal issues that arise in European case law, distinguishing economic debates from the legal issues involved. In so doing, it seeks to prevent the distortions to the legal method that can result from adopting a more piecemeal approach. Market Definition in EU Competition Law provides a crucial introduction to the topic and will be an important resource for students and scholars of European competition law. Practitioners and judges will also benefit from the extensive analysis of case law and the practical examples.

In this timely book, Beata Mäihäniemi analyses and evaluates how the characteristics of information as a good, as well as the characteristics of digital platforms, affect the application of competition law in both theory and practice. Chapters offer a full evaluation and in-depth analysis of several key case studies in which information such as big data has been obtained, made use of, sold, or biased in an uncompetitive way. Such critical case studies include the European Commission's 2017 judgement against Google for granting illegal advantage to their own comparison shopping service, as well as the Bundeskartellamt's decision regarding Facebook's unfair trading terms under which it was gathering users' data without their voluntary consent. Reacting to these cases, the book offers guidance on how competition law can evolve to accommodate digital markets, such as classifying information as 'commons' or 'commodity', in order to realise social goals such as fairness.Compelling and insightful, this book will prove an important companion for students and scholars studying digital markets, as well as competition law more widely. It will also appeal to practitioners working on cases involving the regulation and usage of big data.

This cutting-edge book provides a thorough analysis of the transposition of the rules of the EU Damages Directive, examining their impact on the enforcement of competition law and the victim’s right to full compensation. It also studies the possible consequences of an anticipated rise in civil damages actions in Europe and how this, in turn, may alter the effectiveness of the enforcement system.Applying insights from an economic analysis of law, Philipp Kirst investigates the effectiveness of the measures prescribed by the Directive that are intended to overcome the potential negative effects of increased private enforcement of competition law, offering concrete legislative proposals to combat these. Kirst focuses on three aspects that are crucial to achieving the Directive’s main objectives: the EU leniency programme, the sanctioning methodology, and the allocation of civil liability among joint infringers. Furthermore, the book offers policy recommendations to reconcile both an effective enforcement regime and compensation of victims.Provoking debate on the ways in which a more integrated enforcement regime could be created, this book will be a crucial text for academics in the fields of competition and antitrust law and European law and economics. It will also be a key reference point for practitioners and enforcement agencies.

This timely book discusses the application of the EU competition rules to pharmaceuticals, covering the prohibitions on anticompetitive agreements and abuse of dominance, and merger control.The author team comprises academic experts and private practitioners who analyse recent case law at both EU (and UK) and Member State levels – in the context of current issues and future trends, including those related to COVID-19 – and examine the impact of competition law on the behaviour of the pharmaceutical industry. The book carefully considers the balance between competition and innovation, as well as between competition and regulation. It concludes that competition and regulation are not alternatives, but complementary, and that novel ways of taking into account risk and real innovation through competition assessments have been developed.Integrating an overview of competition law, IP law and pharmaceutical regulation, this book will be an ideal read for scholars and graduate students, as well as private and public practitioners interested in pharmaceutical and European law.

In modern markets innovation is at least as great a concern as price competition. The book discusses how antitrust policy and patent and copyright laws interact to create market dynamics that affect both competition and innovation. Antitrust and intellectual property policies for the most part are complementary, sharing common goals of promoting innovation and economic welfare. In some cases, however, their distinct approaches, one based on competition and the other on exclusion, come into conflict. As antitrust authorities focus increasingly on ensuring that firms do not interfere with innovation by rivals or impede the pace of technological progress in an industry, they necessarily must confront difficult questions about the strength and scope of intellectual property rights. When should private property rights give way to public competition objectives? When is it appropriate to remedy anticompetitive outcomes through access to protected intellectual property? How does antitrust enforcement or competition itself affect incentives to innovate? Leading economists and lawyers address these questions from both US and EU perspectives in discussing salient antitrust cases involving intellectual property rights such as Microsoft, Magill, Kodak, IMS and Intel.Offering a non-technical introduction to this major topic, this book will be of interest to those practitioners and legal and economic scholars who may only be aware of one side of the conflicting views on competition law and intellectual property law. It will also be of interest more generally to schools and universities of law in the EU and the US.

Using the example of research tools in biopharmaceutical research and innovation, this book examines the complexities of the relationship between two fundamental areas of law and policy - intellectual property rights and competition law. It addresses a question that is certain to become paramount in other industries also: how to strike the balance between initial and follow-on innovation so as to ensure that access to 'essential' research tools (or other fundamental elements to follow-on innovation) is not impeded. The book concludes by suggesting how competition law could be used to complement the patent balance.Competition Law and Patents caters for various groups ranging from those with a general interest in competition law, patent law and/or biopharmaceuticals, to students who want to understand how competition and intellectual property work in practice (or to understand the interface between the two policies), and from practitioners and policymakers to people within the biopharmaceutical industry itself.

The diverse and excellent set of authors assembled in this book sheds light on the continuing and conflicting calls for deregulation and re-regulation of important industries and informs the ongoing, increasingly global, policy debate over the evolving line between regulation and general competition policy. The purpose of this book is to understand the debate and its policy implications, focusing on the traditionally regulated sectors of telecommunications and energy, and comparing approaches in the European Union and the United States. The book also contains contributions that generalize across industries, thus lending relevance beyond the two sectors that anchor the book.Innovatively combining legal and economic views, Antitrust and Regulation in the EU and US will be of great interest to scholars of competition law, international law firms, and competition authorities and sector-specific regulation authorities (federal and state).

This book examines the growing divergences between the EU and the US in their approach to antitrust law enforcement, particularly where it relates to intellectual property (IP) rights. The scope of US antitrust law as defined in the Supreme Court's decisions in Trinko and Credit Suisse Securities is much narrower than the scope of EU competition law. US antitrust enforcers have become increasingly reluctant to apply antitrust rules to regulated markets, whereas the European Commission has consistently used EU competition rules to correct the externalities resulting from government action. The contrasting approaches adopted by US and EU antitrust enforcers to these issues, as with the differences in addressing market dominance, have had a profound impact on the scope of antitrust intervention in the IP field. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the relevant recent developments on both sides of the Atlantic and identifies the pitfalls of regulating IP through competition rules.With a unique comparative perspective, this book will be an invaluable resource for postgraduate students, academics and practitioners in IP and competition law.

This insightful book compares how the US and EU antitrust authorities have enforced Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and Article 102 of the TFEU against monopolists' practices involving intellectual property rights. The discussion comes in the wake of the great interest engendered by the interface between antitrust law and intellectual property rights, considering that the ongoing integration of markets pushes countries towards a harmonization of their legal systems. Mariateresa Maggiolino takes this inquiry forward by confronting the two jurisdictions' legal standards with current economic thinking, and discusses the policy suggestions that result. In addition, topics that are usually treated separately are effectively combined. The legal analysis is frequently connected and compared to the past and present economic thinking and Mariateresa Maggiolino expertly embraces the historical, cultural and policy perspectives. This unique book will therefore prove enriching for academics and postgraduate students of law and industrial organization.Contents: Preface by Herbert Hovenkamp; Introduction; 1. Antitrust Law, IPRs and Economics: the Leeway for Policy Choices; 2. Section 2 and Article 102(b): The Antitrust Roots of the Antitrust-IP Interface; 3. Ownership of IPRs; 4. Predatory System Innovations; 5. Refusals to license IPRs; 6. IP Judicial and Administrative Processes; 7. Conclusion; Bibliography