The case for a greener antitrust is weak and flawed. It is largely abstract, hypothetical, legalistic, somewhat emotive, and lacks supporting evidence. Its proponents claim that the European Commission’s enforcement of Article 101 TFEU blocks efficient industry-initiated cooperation to improve...

Friedrich A. von Hayek’s (1899-1992) view of competition as a discovery process is well known but little used. His central thesis is that a competitive pricing system is the most effective way to coordinate economic activity and economise on the information held by market participants in a...

In dealing with telecom operator and internet mergers in the late 1990s the European Commission adopted a pessimistic view of competition based on the then emerging theory of network effects. This paper takes a short and critical look at the Commission's use of network effects theory, and its...

This article looks at the growing use of the counterfactual approach in European and UK competition laws. The term counterfactual has not been a feature of European competition law, with the exception of merger control, to date. However, with the move to an effects-based approach,...

Antitrust authorities across the world are waging war against domestic and international cartels. The European Commission in particular has intensified its prosecution activities and increased dramatically the fines it imposes on cartelists. This article undertakes a statistical overview of the...

In this article the alternative methods of regulating the cable TV industry are compared in terms of efficiency and consumer welfare. The effectiveness of each regulatory option in limiting any market power that cable operators may be able to exercise is considered in a framework which...

The UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) nine-month inquiry into fixed-to-mobile termination charges provides an exhaustive analysis of competitive and cost factors in mobile telephony. Its recommendations are discussed and compared with those of the telecommunications regulator, OFTEL,...

There has been growing concern about the accountability and procedural safeguards surrounding the economic regulation in privatised utility industries (telecommunications, gas, airports, water and electricity). In the paper, the source of the problems is identified as the overreliance on the...