Competition Laws in Conflict
Key Points
May 13, 2004
-
-
Email Article
-
|
These key points are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.- Globalization has produced massive antitrust policy proliferation. Close to one hundred countries (and some international bodies, such as the European Union) now enforce overlapping and conflicting antitrust laws.
- Within the United States, the law enforcement function is uneasily divided between the federal government, increasingly aggressive states, and private parties, acting under a mix of federal and state law.
- A system under which each jurisdiction applies its own competition rules to global transactions will produce grave political conflicts, while raising compliance costs to intolerable levels. High-profile antitrust disputes—from the prosecution of Microsoft in state, national, and international forums to the transatlantic disagreement over the European Union’s merger policy—illustrate the burgeoning difficulties.
- Policymakers should first concentrate on remedying incontrovertible institutional errors such as antidumping laws, certain sectoral arrangements (such as telecommunications), and export cartel exemptions.
- Internationally, an antitrust non-discrimination rule, akin to the World Trade Organization’s “national treatment” rule, may merit cautious support.
- Domestically, an effort to distinguish federal and state responsibilities may require restrictions on the states’ antitrust immunity and their parens patriae enforcement powers (which grant authority to act on behalf of citizens), and an end to federal antitrust jurisdiction over purely in-state activities.
