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Antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust law (or just antitrust), anti-monopoly law, and trade practices law. The history of competition law reaches back to the Roman Empire. The business practices of market traders, guilds and governments have always been subject to scrutiny, and sometimes severe sanctions. Since the 20th century, competition law has become global. The two largest and most influential systems of competition regulation are United States antitrust law and European Union competition law. National and regional competition authorities across the world have formed international support and enforcement networks. Modern competition law has historically evolved on a national level to promote and maintain fair competition in markets principally within the territorial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Antitrust Law
In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These acts serve three major functions. First, Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits price fixing and the operation of cartels, and prohibits other collusive practices that unreasonably restrain trade. Second, Section 7 of the Clayton Act restricts the mergers and acquisitions of organizations that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. Third, Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits monopolization. Federal antitrust laws provide for both civil and criminal enforcement. Civil antitrust enforcement occurs through lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predatory Pricing
Predatory pricing is a pricing strategy, using the method of undercutting on a larger scale, where a dominant firm in an industry will deliberately reduce the prices of a product or service to loss-making levels in the short-term. The aim is that existing or potential competitors within the industry will be forced to leave the market, as they are unable to effectively compete with the dominant firm without making a loss. Once competition has been eliminated, the dominant firm now having a majority share of the market can raise its prices to monopoly levels in the long-term to recoup its losses. The difference between predatory pricing and competitive pricing is during the recouping phase of lost profits by the dominant firm charging higher prices. With there being less firms in the market causing consumers to have fewer choices between products or services, these higher prices result in consumer harm. Predatory pricing usually causes consumer harm and is considered anti-co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – December 19, 2012) was an American jurist who served as the solicitor general of the United States from 1973 to 1977. A professor at Yale Law School by occupation, he later served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Senate rejected his nomination after a highly publicized confirmation hearing. Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received both his undergraduate and legal education at the University of Chicago. After working at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he served as a professor at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the Framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution. He also became an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers and that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartel
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Most jurisdictions consider it anti-competitive behavior and have outlawed such practices. Cartel behavior includes price fixing, bid rigging, and reductions in output. The doctrine in economics that analyzes cartels is cartel theory. Cartels are distinguished from other forms of collusion or anti-competitive organization such as corporate mergers. Etymology The word ''cartel'' comes from the Italian word '' cartello'', which means a "leaf of paper" or "placard", and is itself derived from the Latin ''charta'' meaning "card". The Italian word became ''cartel'' in Middle French, which was borrowed into English. In English, the word was originally used for a written agreement between warring nations to regulate the treatment and exchange of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Union Competition Law
European competition law is the competition law in use within the European Union. It promotes the maintenance of competition within the European Single Market by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies to ensure that they do not create cartels and monopolies that would damage the interests of society. European competition law today derives mostly from articles 101 to 109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), as well as a series of Regulations and Directives. Four main policy areas include: *Cartels, or control of collusion and other anti-competitive practices, under article 101 TFEU. * Market dominance, or preventing the abuse of firms' dominant market positions under article 102 TFEU. *Mergers, control of proposed mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures involving companies that have a certain, defined amount of turnover in the EU, according to the European Union merger law. *State aid, control of direct and indirect aid given by Memb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-competitive
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws differ among state and federal laws to ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. These laws are formed to promote healthy competition within a free market by limiting the abuse of monopoly power. Competition allows companies to compete in order for products and services to improve; promote innovation; and provide more choices for consumers. In order to obtain greater profits, some large enterprises take advantage of market power to hinder survival of new entrants. Anti-competitive behavior can undermine the efficiency and fairness of the market, leaving consumers with little choice to obtain a reasonable quality of service. Anti-competitive behaviour is used by business and governments to lessen competition within the markets so that monopolies and dominant firms can generate superno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tying (commerce)
Tying (informally, product tying) is the practice of selling one product or service as a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service. In legal terms, a ''tying sale'' makes the sale of one good (the ''tying good'') to the de facto customer (or de jure customer) conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good (the ''tied good''). Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related. It is related to but distinct from freebie marketing, a common (and legal) method of giving away (or selling at a substantial discount) one item to ensure a continual flow of sales of another related item. Some kinds of tying, especially by contract, have historically been regarded as anti-competitive practices. The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but were mostly regulated by the city government. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. These rules reduced free competition, but sometimes main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction
Extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) is the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its normal boundaries. Any authority can claim ETJ over any external territory they wish. However, for the claim to be effective in the external territory (except by the exercise of force), it must be agreed either with the legal authority in the external territory, or with a legal authority that covers both territories. When unqualified, ETJ usually refers to such an agreed jurisdiction, or it will be called something like "claimed ETJ". The phrase may also refer to a country's laws extending beyond its boundaries in the sense that they may authorise the courts of that country to enforce their jurisdiction against parties appearing before them in with respect to acts they allegedly engaged in outside that country. This does not depend on the co-operation of other countries, since the affected people are within the relevant country (or at least, in a case involving a person being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Price Gouging
Price gouging is a pejorative term used to describe the situation when a seller increases the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock. This term is commonly used to describe price increases of basic necessities after natural disasters. In legal usage, price gouging is the name of a crime that applies in some jurisdictions of the United States during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, the term can also be used to refer to profits obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market, or to windfall profits. Price gouging is considered by some to be exploitative and unethical. The term is similar to profiteering but can be distinguished by being short-term and localized and by being restricted to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and equipment needed to preserve life and property. In jurisdictions where there is no su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mergers And Acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect of strategic management, M&A can allow enterprises to grow or downsize, and change the nature of their business or competitive position. Technically, a is a legal consolidation of two business entities into one, whereas an occurs when one entity takes ownership of another entity's share capital, equity interests or assets. A deal may be euphemistically called a ''merger of equals'' if both CEOs agree that joining together is in the best interest of both of their companies. From a legal and financial point of view, both mergers and acquisitions generally result in the consolidation of assets and liabilities under one entity, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. In most countries, mergers and acquisitions must c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Services
A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies or via public financing to private businesses or voluntary organizations (or even as provided by family households, though terminology may differ depending on context). Other public services are undertaken on behalf of a government's residents or in the interest of its citizens. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income, physical ability or mental acuity. Examples of such services include the fire brigade, police, air force, and paramedics (see also public service broadcasting). Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, they are usually subject to regulation going beyond th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
