In 2006, Russia amended its competition law and added the concepts of “collective dominance” and its abuse. This was seen as an attempt to address the common problem of “conscious parallelism” among firms in concentrated industries. Critics feared that the enforcement of this provision...

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes played as important a part in the development of United States antitrust law as he played in the development of constitutional law for which he enjoys a reputation as a giant in American law. Yet, for the more than sixty years since Holmes's retirement, there has...

The Microsoft case (U.S. vs Microsoft, 1998) is paradigmatic of some of the most important features of an antitrust case, like the definition of the relevant market, the detection of the market power and of its abuse. In the software industry, as the companies are competing on the standard of...

The Microsoft case (U.S. vs Microsoft, 1998) is paradigmatic of some of the most important features of an antitrust case, like the definition of the relevant market, the detection of the market power and of its abuse. In the software industry, as the companies are competing on the standard of...

The aim of this paper is threefold. First, it seeks to contribute to a more fine-grained comparison between US antitrust and EU competition law by (selectively) including state antitrust laws as well as laws that pursue objectives different from the antitrust laws but interfere with the aims of...

We test the economic principles that play a role for imposing fines against the intentions put forward by the EC Commission in the new 2006 Fine Guidelines. Whereas a number of economists in the past adopted the opinion that cartel enforcement policy was too lax in Europe, it is now much...

Mergers have the potential for negative social welfare consequences from increased likelihood or effectiveness of future collusion. This raises the question of whether there are meaningful thresholds for the post-merger industry that should trigger significant scrutiny by the Department of...

This paper analyzes the incentives for 'whistleblowing' on a cartel under different assumptions about market demand and firms' costs. We introduce the concept of a 'critical expected penalty' to demonstrate the crucial role of such demand and cost parameters in determining firms' choices. We...

Brands and brand management have become a central feature of the modern economy and a staple of business theory and business practice. Contrary to the law’s conception of trademarks, brands are used to indicate far more than source and/or quality. This volume begins the process of broadening...

The Austrian Federal Competition Authority (AFCA) invited comment on its draft guidelines for exempting “sustainability agreements” from condemnation under Austrian competition law. That law recently changed, allowing a specific exemption for otherwise anticompetitive horizontal agreements...