Competition law
Basic concepts
History of competition law Monopolization Coercive monopoly Natural monopoly Barriers to entry Market power SSNIP test Relevant market Merger control
Anti-competitive practices
Collusion Formation of cartels Price fixing Product bundling and tying Refusal to deal Group boycott Exclusive dealing Bid rigging Dividing territories Conscious parallelism Predatory pricing Misuse of patents and copyrights
Laws and doctrines
United States Sherman Antitrust Act Clayton Antitrust Act Robinson-Patman Act Federal Trade Commission Act Merger guidelines Essential facilities doctrine Noerr-Pennington doctrine Rule of reason Europe European Community competition law Irish Competition Law Competition Act 1998 (U. Competition law history refers to attempts by governments to regulate Competitive markets for goods and services leading up to the modern competition or Antitrust The term "monopolization" refers to an offense under Section 2 of the American Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890 In Economics and Business ethics, a coercive monopoly is a business concern that prohibits competitors from entering the field with the natural result being that Natural monopoly is a term used in Economics to refer to two different things In Economics and especially in the theory of Competition, barriers to entry are obstacles in the path of a firm which wants to enter a given Market In Economics, market power is the ability of a firm to alter the Market price of a good or service In Competition law, before deciding whether companies have significant Market power which would justify government intervention the test of Small but Significant and Non-transitory In Competition law the Relevant market defines the market in which one or more goods compete Merger control refers to the procedure of reviewing Mergers and acquisitions under Antitrust / competition law Anti-competitive practices are Business or Government practices that prevent and/or reduce Competition in a Market (see Restraint of trade Collusion is an agreement usually secretive which occurs between two or more persons to deceive mislead or defraud others of their legal rights or to obtain an objective forbidden A cartel is a formal (explicit agreement among firms Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve Price fixing is an agreement between business competitors to sell the same product or service at the same price Product bundling is a Marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product Tying is the practice of making the sale of one good (the tying good to the De facto or De jure customer conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive Refusal to deal is one of several Anti-competitive practices forbidden in countries which have Free market economies In Competition law, a group boycott is a type of Secondary boycott in which two or more competitors in a Relevant market refuse to conduct business Exclusive dealing refers to when a retailer or wholesaler is ‘tied’ to purchase from a supplier on the understanding that no other distributor will be appointed or receive supplies Bid rigging is an illegal agreement between two or more competitors Dividing territories (also Market division) is an agreement by two companies to stay out of each other's way and reduce competition in the agreed-upon territories Conscious parallelism is a term used in Competition law to describe Price-fixing between competitors in an Oligopoly that occurs without an actual spoken Predatory pricing (also known as destroyer pricing) is the practice of a firm selling a product at very low price with the intent of driving competitors out of the Market In United States patent law, patent misuse is an Affirmative defense used in patent litigation when a Defendant has been accused to have Copyright misuse is an equitable defense against Copyright infringement in the United States based on the unreasonable conduct of United States antitrust law is the body of Laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly and Unfair business practices. The Sherman Antitrust Act ( Sherman Act, July 2, 1890, ch 647,) was the first United States Federal statute to limit Cartels and The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 ( October 15[[ 914]] ch 323, codified at,) was enacted in the United States to add further substance to the U The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 (or Anti-Justice League Discrimination Act,) is a United States federal law that prohibits what were considered at the time of passage The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (15 USC §§ 41-58 as amended) established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC a Bipartisan body of five members The Merger guidelines are a set of internal rules promulgated by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ in conjunction with the The essential facilities doctrine (sometimes also referred to as the essential facility doctrine) is a Legal doctrine which describes a particular type of claim of The Noerr-Pennington doctrine is a doctrine of United States Antitrust law set forth by the United States Supreme Court in a pair of cases which European Community competition law is one of the areas of authority of the European Union. Irish Competition Law is the Irish body of legal rules designed to ensure fairness and freedom in the Marketplace. The Competition Act 1998 is the current major source of competition policy in the UK along with Enterprise Act 2002. K. ) Australia Trade Practices Act 1974
Enforcement authorities and organizations
International Competition Network List of competition regulators
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The rule of reason is a doctrine developed by the United States Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Trade Practices Act 1974 is an act of the Parliament of Australia. The International Competition Network is an informal virtual network that seeks to facilitate cooperation between Competition law authorities globally A competition regulator is a Government agency, typically a statutory authority, sometimes called an economic regulator, which regulates and enforces The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. The Sherman Antitrust Act ( Sherman Act, July 2, 1890, ch 647,) was the first United States Federal statute to limit Cartels and The rule, stated and applied in the case of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1 (1911), is that only combinations and contracts unreasonably restraining trade are subject to actions under the anti-trust laws and that size and possession of monopoly power are not illegal. A legal case is a dispute between opposing parties resolved by a Court, or by some equivalent legal process Standard Oil Co of New Jersey v United States, 221 US 1 (1911 was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past Court cases either in special series of books called reporters Year 1911 ( MCMXI) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law Trade is the willing exchange of goods, services, or both Trade is also called Commerce. In Economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos, alone or single + polein, to sell exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient

Some of Standard Oil's critics, including the lone dissenter Justice John Marshall Harlan, argued that Standard Oil and its Rule of Reason was a departure from previous Sherman Act case law, which purportedly had interpreted the language of the Sherman Act to hold that all contracts restraining trade were prohibited, regardless of whether the restraint actually produced no ill effects. This is about the pre-World-War-I US Supreme Court justice for his grandson the mid-20th century holder of the same position see John Marshall Harlan II. These critics emphasized in particular the Court's decision in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Ass'n, 166 U. United States v Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 US 290 ( 1897) was a United States Supreme Court case holding that the Sherman S. 290 (1897), which contains some language suggesting that a mere restriction on the autonomy of traders would suffice to establish that an agreement restrained trade within the meaning of the Act. Others, including William Howard Taft and Robert Bork, argued that the decision and the principle it announced was entirely consistent with earlier case law. William Howard Taft (September 15 1857 – March 8 1930 was an American politician, the twenty-seventh President of the United States, the tenth Chief Justice Robert Heron Bork (born March 1, 1927) is a conservative American legal scholar who advocates the judicial philosophy of Originalism. These scholars argue that much language in Trans-Missouri Freight was dicta, and also emphasized the Court's decision in United States v. Joint Traffic Association, 171 U. S. 505 (1898), in which the Court announced that "ordinary contracts and combinations" did not offend the Sherman Act, because they merely restrained trade "indirectly. " Indeed, in his 1912 book on Antitrust Law, Taft reported that he had challenged Standard Oil's critics to articulate one scenario in which the "Rule of Reason" would produce a result different from that produced under prior case law. According to Taft, no critic of Standard Oil was able to answer this challenge. Just seven years later, the Court unanimously reaffirmed the Rule of Reason in an opinion by Justice Louis Brandeis, Chicago Board of Trade v. Louis Dembitz Brandeis ( November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American litigator, Supreme Court Justice, advocate United States, 246 U. S. 231 (1918). The decision found that an agreement between rivals limiting rivalry on price after an exchange was closed was reasonable and thus did not violate the Sherman Act. The Sherman Antitrust Act ( Sherman Act, July 2, 1890, ch 647,) was the first United States Federal statute to limit Cartels and

On the same day the Supreme Court announced Standard Oil, it also announced United States v. American Tobacco Co. , 221 U. S. 106 (1911). That decision held that Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which bans monopolization did not ban the mere possession of a monopoly, but instead banned only the unreasonable acquisition and/or maintenance of monopoly. The term "monopolization" refers to an offense under Section 2 of the American Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890

The rule was narrowed in later cases that held that certain kinds of restraints, such as price fixing agreements, group boycotts, and geographical market divisions, were illegal per se. Price fixing is an agreement between business competitors to sell the same product or service at the same price A boycott is a form of Consumer activism involving the act of voluntarily abstaining from using buying or dealing with someone or some other organization as an expression of Dividing territories (also Market division) is an agreement by two companies to stay out of each other's way and reduce competition in the agreed-upon territories The term illegal per se means that the act is inherently illegal These decisions followed up on Standard Oil's suggestion that courts can determine that certain restraints are unreasonable based simply upon the "nature and character" of the agreement. More recently, the United States Supreme Court has narrowed the category of restraints deemed unlawful per se, thereby subjecting a greater number of restraints to fact-based rule of reason analysis. See, e. g. , Continental TV v. GTE Sylvania, 433 U. S. 36 (1977) (holding that courts should analyze non-price vertical restraints under the Rule of Reason); State Oil v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3 (1997) (holding that courts should evaluate maximum resale price maintenance under the Rule of Reason); Leegin Creative Leather Prods. Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. , 127 S. Ct. 2705 (2007) (overturning the per se restriction on minimum retail price maintenance agreements). See also Polk Brothers, Inc. v. Forest City, 776 F. 2d 185 (7th Cir. 1985). Moreover, the U. S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed Standard Oil's conclusion that analysis under the Rule of Reason should focus on the economic, and not social, consequences of a restraint. See National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978). Moreover, the Court has retained the per se rule against tying contracts, although it has raised the threshold showing of market power that plaintiffs must make to satisfy the rule's requirement of "economic power. " See Jefferson Parish Hospital District No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U. S. 2 (1985)

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has adopted the concept in its own jurisprudence concerning the free movement of goods within the European Common Market. This article refers to the European Union court not the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe The Court of Justice Jurisprudence is the Theory and Philosophy of Law. Scholars of jurisprudence or legal philosophers hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature The rule has arisen in the context of Article 28 (ex 30) of the Treaty of Rome, which prohibits quantitative restrictions on imports (or measures having equivalent effect). In Cassis de Dijon the ECJ drew a distinction between measures in breach of Article 28 which were indistinctly applicable as opposed to distinctly applicable. Indistinctly applicable measures are ones that, prima facie, do not favour domestic producers over importers, and whose effects are equal on both. The ECJ argued that indistinctly applicable measures that favoured domestic traders over importers were not necessarily in breach of Article 28. They could be justified if they satisfied 'mandatory' requirements - namely that the measure is necessary for protecting the public or the consumer. The rule of reason is essentially the proposition that a proportionality exercise must be performed by the Court to determine whether the effects of Member State legislation on the free movement of goods is justified in light of the legislation's stated goals. Legislation (or " Statutory law " is law which has been promulgated (or " Enacted quot by a Legislature or other Governing

This proportionality exercise has itself been applied by the ECJ further than the boundaries of Article 28 would initially allow.

See also: United States Government, U.S. history

Bibliography

• William Howard Taft, The Antitrust Acts And The Supreme Court (1914)
• Robert H. The federal government of the United States is the central United States Governmental body established by the United States Constitution. Bork, The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept: Price Fixing and Market Division, 74 Yale L. J. 775 (1965) (Part I)
• Rudolph Peritz, Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992 (1996)
• Albert H. Walker, The Unreasonable Obiter Dicta of Chief Justice White in the Standard Oil Case: A Critical Review (1911)
• Alan Meese, Price Theory, Competition, and the Rule of Reason, 2003 Illinois L. Rev. 77
• William Page, Ideological Conflict and the Origins of Antitrust Policy, 66 Tulane L. Rev. 1 (1991)
• William Letwin, Law and Economic Policy in America (1965)
• Martin Sklar, The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916 (1988)
• Thomas A. Piraino, Reconciling the Per Se and Rule of Reason Approaches to Antitrust Analysis, 64 S. CAL. L. REV. 685 (1991)
• Frank H. Easterbrook, The Limits of Antitrust, 63 Texas L. Rev. 1 (1984).

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