Review Essay : New Perspectives on International Antitrust

While never completely dormant, international antitrust has gained a new momentum in the past two decades or so, evidenced by the intensity of the global exchange on international antitrust issues. This momentum is driven, inter alia, by the significant increases in international trade. It is also fueled by the exponential growth in the number and trading power of jurisdictions that have adopted antitrust laws, thereby increasing possible jurisdictional overlaps while providing a wider toolbox to deal with antitrust matters with a transborder dimension. Such developments strengthen the need to solve an existing paradox: while major businesses are often global, antitrust rules regulating their conduct are not. Academic scholarship plays an important role in these developments, both mapping the challenges that lie ahead - based on past efforts and the current state of antitrust around the world - and suggesting ways to meet such challenges. This book review analyzes three recent significant contributions to this literature, while focusing on three related questions that this scholarship raises. First, what is international about antitrust? Second, what challenges are faced by international antitrust? Third, what are the prospects for future developments in international antitrust: do history and realism militate against a true international solution, or can such a solution evolve and, if so, under what conditions?