Introduction: European Competition Law offers a unique area where law and economics interact to produce an effective internal market. One of the goals in EU Competition law is to avoid markets and companies to be abuse or to fail. Under EU legislation concerning competition law states that ‘direct effect of the prohibitions laid down in Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty that any individual can claim compensation for the harm suffered, where there is a causal relationship between that harm and an infringement of the EU competition rules.’ Damages claims for infringements on Article 101 and 102 TFEU consider being an important area of the private enforcement system. Infringements of Competition Law can harm not only companies and consumers, but also can affect Europe as a whole. Even though the EU public and private enforcement systems have different objectives, they do effects each other. The EU has a more of a public enforcement approach, while the US has a more private enforcement approach. The purpose of the essay is to identify whether EU law manage to maintain a balance of public and private enforcement, comparing it with other enforcement systems. The first part of the essay focuses on the EU legislation concerning the public and private enforcement legislation. This will give a better understanding on Europe’s approach towards the enforcement systems. The second part of the essay will explain in detail the public and private enforcement. The third part of the essay will concentrate on the existing difficulties between the enforcement systems and the new Directive proposed by the Commission. The fourth part of the essay will compare the US and EU enforcement systems and then evaluate whether the EU should take similar app... ... middle of paper ... ...c Reasearch Discussion Paper No. 29 • Möschel W, US versus EU Antitrust Law, 2007, Mannheim. • OFT, Private Actions in Competition Law: a consultation on options for reform, July 2012, Office of Fair Trading. • Press Release, Antitrust: Commission welcomes Parliament vote to facilitate damages claims by victims of antitrust violations, 17 April 2014. • Smijter E and Becker R, The White Paper on damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules, No 2, 2008, Articles. • Sufrin B and Jones A., EU Competition Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, 2014, Oxford University Press. • Szczepański M., Facilitating damage claims by victims of anti-competitive practices, 9 September 2013, Library of the European Parliament. • Wils P.J. W., The relationship between Public and Antitrust Enforcement and Private Actions for Damages, Vol. 32, No.1, March 2009, World Competition.
The role of law reform has responded rather effectively to a certain extent in protecting the rights of consumers. This is evident in the legal responses introduced to address issues of credit, marketing innovation and technology. These law amendments has effectively increase the protection of the rights of consumers to a certain extent, however loopholes still exist. Due to the increasing range of goods and services continues to grow and the failure of existing laws, the role of law reform has been significant in protecting the rights of consumers. Consumer laws were created to prevent deceitful activities, or unfair business practices, as well as serving a protection for weaker parties who are unable to protect themselves. However, laws were later reformed to enable customers to transact with confidence and protect suppliers, consumers from inappropriate business conduct and to reflect changed community values and circumstances.
“Processor Editorial Article - Antitrust Laws: Not Just For The Big Boys.” Editorial.Processor 19 Nov. 2004: 27+. Processor.com. Web. 29 Nov. 2011 .
Sweeney, B, O'Reilly, J & Coleman, A 2013, Law in Commerce, 5th edition, Lexis Nexis, Australia.
To answer this question I will firstly explain how EU law became incorporated within the member states I will then explain the various types of EU legislation's in circulation. This is important to define as the various types of methods will involve different enforcement procedures. Finally I will explain how EU law is enforced and the ways EU law will effect the member state and individual businesses. I will summarise my findings at the end of the essay, this will give details of all the key ideas I have ut across.
...efits from adopting unfair business practices and discouraging competition are much higher than the expected penalty and punishment. With changing time, there is need to make these laws more effective and relevant.
This essay will examine key aspects of the recent implementation of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) 2011, which is the largest overhaul in Consumer Law in Australia in the past twenty five years. The ACL replaces 20 existing State and Territory laws into one national law , the legislation was enacted in two main parts as Schedule 2 of the renamed Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (TPA) - Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) . Aforementioned this essay it will outline the key benefits of the implementation of the act. Furthermore it will critique the Act, whilst exploring the objectives of the legislation.
The decision in Equuscorp is significant, as it has made clear several principles that were once ambiguous under Australian law. It ratifies that restitutionary remedies are unavailable for a claim for money had and received where recovery would reduce coherence in the law. Furthermore, Equuscorp has confirmed that a bare cause of action can be assigned where the assignee has a genuine commercial interest in its enforcement.
Towards the end of the 90’s the growing dissatisfaction regarding the efficiency of the European’s Commission competition policy, especially in light of the imminent enlargement of the European Union, led to the publication of a White Paper that suggested several modifications to the competition policy’s function and structure. This process, also known as the modernization package of European merger, eventually led to the adoption of Council Regulation 139/2004 in early May 2004 (ECMR 04). It has been argued that the employment of such drastic changes came as a response to the overturning by the General Court of three sanctioning decisions of the DG for Competition. In these successful appeals, the General Court based its decision on the grounds that the DG for Competition applied the standard of proof of dominance in a very strict and rigid way. Consequently, in 2001 the European Commission published a Green Paper callin...
Tort, one of the crucial subjects of study when analyzing common law jurisdictions. Tort, is an action which causes another person or party to suffer harm or loss []. The person who has committed a tortious act is called the tortfeasor while the person who suffered harm or loss from such act is called the injured party or the victim. Although crimes may be torts, torts may not be crimes [] simply because a tort may not have broken a law. In fact, one must understand that the key idea of tort is not to punish the tortfeasor(s) but rather to compensate the victim(s).
UK Competition Policy can be broadly defined as "a means by which governments hope to improve the competitive environment in which firms operate, in order to enhance the overall performance of the economy."(Lees and Lam, 2001) Competition law is enforced by the Office of Fair Trading. Their aim is to make the market place fair, by eliminating any unfair practices. Under the title of Competition Policy, a number of factors are taken into account. Competition Law is used to impose certain regulations on companies. A number of different Acts are used to implement the law. The Competition Act of 1998 covers such issues as the prevention of cartels, and the prevention of the abuse of a dominant market position. The Enterprise Act of 2002 allows mergers to be investigated. Other activities carried out by the Office of Fair Trading include educating businesses about any changes to the law that may affect them, and the promotion of a "strong competitive culture across a wide range of markets," (Competition Enforcement webpage.) Many UK companies will also be affected by other international laws. Articles 81 and 82 of the European Community will be considered for some cases.
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.
Considerable effort has been expended in attempts to identify the purpose of the law of torts. However, the range of interests protected by the law of torts makes any search for a single aim underlying the law a difficult one. For example, actions for wrongful interference with goods or trespasses to land serve fundamentally different ends from an action seeking compensation for a personal injury. Nevertheless, following the research I have carried out the fundamental purpose of the law of torts is to achieve compensation and appeasement and to obtain deterrence and justice, in order to determine the conditions under which certain losses may be shifted to persons who created the risks which in some way led to the losses. In doing so, the law of torts attempts to balance the utility of a particular type of conduct against the harm it may cause. During the course of this essay I will discuss each function separately and I will investigate how each function achieves its individual resolution of a tort.
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.
From the 1990s, the reports that cover the compensation cases increased dramatically in the mass media (Almond, 2004). There is a view that a huge number of tort cases in the ‘compensation culture’ are unjustified and unfair. In the mid-1990s, the term ‘compensation culture’ first appeared in a famous British newspaper (Levin, 1993). Actually, this is an extreme view, which will be criticized in this paper. This essay emphasizes the compensation culture is a myth (Morris, 2007). There are three reasons: Firstly, the data of the tort claims declined in recent years. Secondly, some victims do not receive the compensation or enough compensation that they deserve. Thirdly, the mass media and public organizations created the ‘compensation