This book examines the interface between global trade liberalization on the one hand, and competition policy on the other. Issues of market access, merger control, and hard-core cartels are pressing. Such issues raise fundamental questions about the nature of competition law and its role in society. What are its objectives? How does it evolve to accommodate changes in prevailing ideology, how does it reflect local tradition, and how is it legitimated? These questions are addressed in the context of a comparison between the two leading models of competition law: those of the US and the EU. They form the framework within which the practical problems of antitrust in the global era can be considered, and solutions can be proposed.

Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requirements in professional services to pro-competitive regulation in telecommunications services. Experience shows that the quality of regulation strongly influences the consequences of trade liberalization. WTO members have agreed that a central task in the ongoing services negotiations will be to develop a set of rules to ensure that domestic regulations support rather than impede trade liberalization. Since these rules are bound to have a profound impact on the evolution of policy, particularly in developing countries, it is important that they be conducive to economically rational policy-making. This book addresses two central questions: What impact can international trade rules on services have on the exercise of domestic regulatory sovereignty? And how can services negotiations be harnessed to promote and consolidate domestic policy reform across highly diverse sectors? The book, with contributions from several of the world's leading experts in the field, explores a range of rule-making challenges arising at this policy interface, in areas such as transparency, standards and the adoption of a necessity test for services trade. Contributions also provide an in-depth look at these issues in the key areas of accountancy, energy, finance, health, telecommunications and transportation services.

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.