In this book, ten prominent authors offer eleven contributions that provide their varying perspectives on the subject of consumer choice in the EU, Member States, and in the US. Various aspects of consumer choice are covered, such as the concept of freedom of choice in the application of EU competition law; the antitrust enforcement application of consumer choice by agencies; the historical origin of consumer choice as a concept grounded in German ordoliberalism; the economic approach adopted as well as the use of consumer welfare and consumer choice in EU competition law to reconcile it with intellectual property law; consumer choice as a mean to facilitate convergence between US antitrust law and EU competition law, etc. This volume offers readers an exhaustive and multifaceted discussion of the crucial concept of consumer choice and its relevance for modern competition law.

Rapid technological innovations have challenged the conventional application of antitrust and competition law across the globe. Acknowledging these challenges, this original work analyses the roles of innovation in competition law analysis and reflects on how competition and antitrust law can be refined and tailored to innovation.

The thesis presents a comprehensive and cross-sectional discussion of buyer power to determine the legal regulation of buyer conducts under EU competition law. It focuses on four main research areas: understanding buyer power; analysing the legal treatment given to the exertion of anticompetitive buyer power under EU competition law; exploring theories of harm applicable to buyer power abuse, and ascertaining the welfare standard employed for buyer power cases.

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.

Throughout the world, the rule against price fixing is competition law's most important and least controversial prohibition. Yet there is far less consensus than meets the eye on what constitutes price fixing, and prevalent understandings conflict with the teachings of oligopoly theory that supposedly underlie modern competition policy. Competition Policy and Price Fixing provides the needed analytical foundation. It offers a fresh, in-depth exploration of competition law's horizontal agreement requirement, presents a systematic analysis of how best to address the problem of coordinated oligopolistic price elevation, and compares the resulting direct approach to the orthodox prohibition. In doing so, Louis Kaplow elaborates the relevant benefits and costs of potential solutions, investigates how coordinated price elevation is best detected in light of the error costs associated with different types of proof, and examines appropriate sanctions. Existing literature devotes remarkably little attention to these key subjects and instead concerns itself with limiting penalties to certain sorts of interfirm communications. Challenging conventional wisdom, Kaplow shows how this circumscribed view is less well grounded in the statutes, principles, and precedents of competition law than is a more direct, functional proscription. More important, by comparison to the communications-based prohibition, he explains how the direct approach targets situations that involve both greater social harm and less risk of chilling desirable behavior--and is also easier to apply.

This book combines practical guidance and theoretical background for analysts using empirical techniques in competition and antitrust investigations. Peter Davis and Eliana Garcés show how to integrate empirical methods, economic theory, and broad evidence about industry in order to provide high-quality, robust empirical work that is tailored to the nature and quality of data available and that can withstand expert and judicial scrutiny. Davis and Garcés describe the toolbox of empirical techniques currently available, explain how to establish the weight of pieces of empirical work, and make some new theoretical contributions. The book consistently evaluates empirical techniques in light of the challenge faced by competition analysts and academics--to provide evidence that can stand up to the review of experts and judges. The book's integrated approach will help analysts clarify the assumptions underlying pieces of empirical work, evaluate those assumptions in light of industry knowledge, and guide future work aimed at understanding whether the assumptions are valid. Throughout, Davis and Garcés work to expand the common ground between practitioners and academics.

This book provides the reader with a comprehensive analysis of US Federal Antitrust and EC Competition Law. It is encyclopaedic in coverage: examining every constituent element of the law and landmark decisions from the perspectives of economics and policy goals, explaining their implications for commercial operations and advocating policy reforms where necessary.