Competition law
The definition of anti-competitive behaviour which is stated by the OECD is the business practices that an organization choose to restrict inter-organization competition to maintain or increase their market position without providing goods and services at a lower price or of higher standard such that these practices occur in the form of cartels, collusions, conspiracies, mergers, predatory pricing, price discrimination, and price fixing. Therefore, these practices also occur in supplier–distributor relationships. For instance- agreements for exclusive dealing, geographic market restrictions, refusals to deal, resale price maintenance, and tied selling. Anti-competitive agreements made in one country can impose an impact on other
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The Competition Act (RSC 1985, c. C-34) accommodates both criminal and civil offences and is directed and implemented by the Competition Bureau of Canada. Some conducts are taken seriously to justify criminal sanctions and they include imprisonment or fines up to $25,000,000. The criminal provisions of the Act apply to cartels, conspiracy to fix prices, allocating customers or markets, controlling production or supply of product, bid rigging, and deceptive marketing practices such as misleading advertising, promotional contests, pyramid selling, and bait and switch selling.
Section 46 Competition Act- it is an offence for an organization operating in Canada to implement a conspiracy directed by people outside Canada. The offence does not allow people or organization to participate in conspiracy whether intentionally or non-intentionally such that conspiracy is a criminal offence and that Canadian criminal law levy jurisdiction over a person only by serving the person within the territory of the court. Here is presenting a case as an example of Canadian affiliate which was fined for implementing conspiracy and thus violating s 46 Competition
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As a result, The Canadian judicial fined them $370,000. This decision taken by the court was appropriate and give lesson to other companies also for future references.
Analysis- It has been analysed that no proceedings or actions was taken against the original company as the affiliated company was outside Canada and Canada jurisdiction can only take companies who are in Canada only and can charge them for their wrongdoing. The United States and the EU, both assert “extraterritorial” jurisdiction.
This case exhibits that competition law should be applicable to all the countries such that the competition regulations are not violated and the companies who involves them in wrongdoings just to protect their position must be aware of the law. This case also gave lesson to other companies that when they sign any agreement the law should be kept in mind. Otherwise, they will be heavily fined by the jurisdiction. However, Canada has now international cooperation agreements with the competition authorities in many other countries, including the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand. It has been analysed that more than 100 countries have adopted the competition law and some are in the process of adopting the law. Moreover, china also adopted the competition in the year
Non-compete agreements are usually found in employments contracts in where a company wants to prevent their employees from working for a competing company. The focus of the non-compete agreement is to protect a company’s business interest and trade secrets but, a non-compete covenant must be laboriously drafted to follow the state’s regulation in order to be enforced in court. There is an enormous discrepancy when it comes to cases that deal with non-compete agreements since it deals with revising if the non-compete agreement was lawful to begin with; courts do not have a consistent approach to this. A lot of companies request the courts to enforce the covenant but, in most cases, the agreement is unenforceable due to the unethical and unlawful
“Processor Editorial Article - Antitrust Laws: Not Just For The Big Boys.” Editorial.Processor 19 Nov. 2004: 27+. Processor.com. Web. 29 Nov. 2011 .
Engineers, contractors, and other businesses must be mindful of and knowledgeable of their legal obligations when performing their occupation or supplying a product. Negligence in the design or construction of a product that results in damage or bodily harm, or could result in damage or bodily harm, can result in liability for economic loss under Canadian Tort law. Engineers, architects, and contractors need to be respectful of their duty of care to ensure their product is precisely produced with no danger of negligence.
United States has several laws that ensure that competition among businesses flow rely and new competitors get free access to the market. These laws intend to ensure fair and balanced competitive business practices. However, there are times when some businesses will do anything to gain competitive edge. USA has strong antitrust laws that prohibit fixing market price, price discrimination, conspiring boycott, monopolizing, and adopting unfair business practices. The history of Antitrust laws goes back to 1890 when Congress passed Sherman Act. In 1914, Congress passed two more acts: Federal Trade Commission Act, and Clayton Act. With some revisions, these three acts are still core antitrust acts.
The first of the three major Federal antitrust laws is the Sherman Act that was created in 1980. This act will not allow for competitors to set a fixed price on a good or allow for one company to become a monopoly. Breaking the Sherman Act can be punished normally as a criminal felony with individuals being fined up to $350,000, businesses being fined up to $10 million and corporations up to $100 million per offense. There is also jail time that can be served by each with the individual who can be sentenced up to three years in jail and a business up to ten years in prison per offense when the Sherman Act is violated.
"The International Anti-Bribery and Fair Competition Act of 1998." 1998. Document. 6 February 2014. < http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/docs/antibribe.pdf>.
This company has been engaged in unscrupulous undertakings that have resulted in innumerable lawsuits against the company. In many countries,
Glader, M. (2006). Innovation markets and competition analysis: EU competition law and US antitrust law. Camberley, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Anti-trust laws are laws which prohibit anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Their purpose is to make sure that businesses and consumers cannot be abused by powerful firms that hold or wish to hold a monopoly in the market. They also take into account certain ethical standards, and therefore can be considered quite subjective. Many specific strategies are outlawed by anti-trust laws, including price fixing (agreement on prices of uniform goods or services), predatory pricing (setting a low price in order to knock off competitors), and vendor lock-in (virtually forcing a consumer to buy from a certain supplier).
The country should create more competition to bring more opponents into certain industry such as in technology industry, agriculture industry and automotive industry. This is to ensure that more productivity will be produce in a higher quality with a lower cost of purchase. As the result, all kind of goods can be purchase by all classes of people. Besides, this is to avoid monopoly firms to take place so that people will not be exploited by these firms.
This is an explicit or implicit agreement between existing firms to avoid or limit competition with one another.
Van Tulder, Rob & Kolk, Ans 2001, ‘Multinationality and Corporate Ethics: Codes of Conduct in the Sporting Goods Industry’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 267-283.
Competition law in the European Union has developed from being an uncertain preoccupation of a few economists, lawyers and officials to one of the leading competition law system in the globe. Nonetheless, in agreement with most commentators, there are inherent flaws within the EU Commission’s procedures. This paper aims to provide an account of concerns in the current system, drawing comments from scholars and EU officials in order to demonstrate both benefits and shortcomings of the system. An overview of the legal and policy debate of the current EU Competition enforcement will be presented as the introduction. Policy concerns such as prosecutorial bias and self-incrimination in enforcement powers will be the main subjects for the purpose of this paper, followed by analysis of the EU commission structure, in particular checks and balances and the hearing process, both of which have been claimed being incompatible with the ECHR. A comparison with the US Antitrust system will also be paralleled through out this essay in order to demonstrate a clearer examination. This essay will conclude with the Commission’s flaws that have effected on the upcoming UK competition law reforms.
Klevorick, Alvin K. "The Current State Of The Law And Economics Of Predatory Pricing." American Economic Review 83.2 (1993): 162. Business Source Complete. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
...ur; in such cases, competition authorities must act to fight unlawful practices that are detrimental for the economic welfare.