At least since the early 1980s, the core principles of merger enforcement policy have been stable. Horizontal mergers that create, enhance, or facilitate the exercise of market power and vertical transactions that adversely affect horizontal competition are condemned, and consumer welfare is the...

The decade of enforcement of EU competition rules under the decentralized enforcement system introduced by the Regulation 1/2003 has turned the national competition authorities (NCAs) into the primary enforcers of the Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. Despite the substantial number of investigations...

The ministerial proposal for a 10th amendment of the German competition law particularly addresses abuse control and seeks to tighten this pillar of competition policy against the background of the challenges from the digital economy. Next to extending the classic policy instruments of abuse...

Antitrust regulation harms both consumers, competition, and innovation and therefore should be repealed. From a legislative standpoint, this would involve repealing the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, as amended, including the...

The European Union legislature and courts leave the European Commission a wide discretion in dealing with antitrust complaints submitted to it. The principal external constraint is that if the Commission chooses not to pursue a formal complaint, it must reject it by means of a reasoned decision,...

We focus on the question of why firms self-regulate to avoid more severe public regulation in the area of antitrust compliance. We distinguish the effects of an antitrust authority's outreach and enforcement on firms' adoption of antitrust compliance programs. Furthermore, we examine the...

Based on a sample of 64 cartels convicted by the European Commission from 1975 to 2009 and a methodology allowing to estimate restitution and dissuasive fines to be imposed on cartels from microeconomic variables on a case by case basis, this paper compares the level of fines actually inflicted...

The enforcement policy of the Egyptian Competition Law reveals that there are two varying approaches in relation to the concept of related parties/single economic unit. The first requires for parties to be related, to be active in the same relevant market. This created discrepancies in practice....

Consumers suffer from high drug prices, which stem in large part from pharmaceutical companies’ anticompetitive games. This essay discusses the crucial role antitrust enforcement agencies can play in addressing pay-for-delay settlements and product hopping and draws lessons from this...

The present paper analyzes the interaction between the economic review of the probition of abuses of a dominant position (Article 82 EC) on the one hand and the efforts to enhance private enforcement of competition law through private damage claims on the other hand. The paper argues that...