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...

A reform movement is underway in antitrust. Citing prior enforcement failures, deviations from the original intent of the antitrust laws, and overall rising levels of sector concentration, some are seeking to fundamentally alter or altogether replace the current consumer welfare standard, which...

This chapter discusses the significance of corporate compliance programmes as a competition enforcement tool. Current enforcement challenges in the fight against collusive practices that are, a low probability of detection and under-deterrence of corporate fines, raise the need to move away from...

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 paper aims at assessing the costs and benefits of antitrust enforcement. The analysis starts with an investigation of why competition is typically worth protecting followed by a collection of empirical evidence which shows that competition actually needs protection by antitrust policy in...

For several years, an increasing number of commentators have been expressing concern that the U.S. has a growing market power problem. Further that dysfunction in the U.S. antitrust institutions, and their failure to protect competition, has damaged the economy. These concerns have led to...

Criminal cartel cases in the U.S. are at modern lows, spurring questions as to whether the Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004 (ACPERA) and the Antitrust Division's criminal enforcement program continue to be effective and, if not, why not? In this Chapter, we offer...

The State Action Doctrine exempts anti-competitive conduct from the United States antitrust laws, under certain conditions. This paper discusses the exemption, particularly its limits, from the perspective of its historical and Constitutional background. It demonstrates that this doctrine does...

This paper provides comments on the investigation by the US House Judiciary Committee (“the Committee”) into the state of competition in the digital marketplace. The comments focus on the third topic identified by the Committee:"Whether the institutional structure of antitrust enforcement...

Behavioral economics is now mainstream. It is also timely. The financial crisis raised important issues of market failure, weak regulation, moral hazard, and our lack of understanding about how many markets actually operate.As behavioral economics (with its more realistic assumptions of human...