Exessive Pricing and the Goals of Competition Law – An Enforcement Perspective: comment on Ackermann

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesTransferpeer-review

Authors

Competition law and the regulation of excessive prices have a notoriously uneasy relationship. If competition authorities directly intervene in markets in order to secure lower prices they pursue a popular aim: fighting against monopoly profits is apparently a just and noble cause. However, there is a distinct feeling among many observers that by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, competition law enforcers gain popularity for all the wrong reasons: price interventions are based on the premise that authorities or courts are better than markets at detecting and bringing down monopoly rents. These interventions do not support the competitive process but change its outcome, and by doing so, they appear to threaten rather than to enhance the welfaregenerating potential of competition. Against this background, the abstention of US antitrust law with regard to the charging of monopoly prices seems to be self-evident, while the European approach of prohibiting the imposition of unfair prices by dominant undertakings, as most prominently featured in Article 102(2)(a) TFEU, but also in the competition laws of EU Member States such as Germany, begs for explanation. This chapter starts from the assumption that a deeper understanding of this peculiar divergence between US and European competition laws can only be found if a broad perspective is taken that includes the interplay between competition law and economic regulation. First, on a level of a positive comparative analysis (which will be the subject of section 2 of this chapter), the...
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Goals of Competition Law
EditorsDaniel Zimmer
Number of pages8
Place of PublicationCheltenham
PublisherEdward Elgar Publishing
Publication date2012
Pages371-378
ISBN (print)978-0-85793-660-8
ISBN (electronic)978-0-85793-661-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Research areas

  • Law

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Aufmerksamkeit in optischen Flußfeldern
  2. Key Competence: Gender
  3. Postural control in Parkinson´s disease
  4. Ein Studium fürs Leben
  5. Consumer preferences determine resilience of ecological-economic systems
  6. Wirtschaftsethik - quo vadis? «Ist» und «Soll» eines Bindestxichfachs aus protestantischer Perspektive
  7. ludiCALL
  8. Ich wünsche mir, dass sich die Lehrer nicht überall einmischen und nicht immer gleich petzen
  9. Der Beitrag zivilgesellschaftlicher Partizipation zur Effektivitatssteigerung von Governance
  10. Philosophy of Religion
  11. Structural pattern of a near-natural beech forest (Fagus sylvatica) (Serrahn, North-east Germany)
  12. Sachunterricht: Innovatives Lernen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung
  13. Make it Irish! Reprints and hibernicizations for (young) Irish readers in eighteenth-century Dublin.
  14. Schadstoffregime in Auenböden der Elbe
  15. §43 VwGO [Feststellungsklage]
  16. Ziel ist Effizienz
  17. Im Namen des Staates
  18. The Stability of Factor Sensitivities of German Stock Market Sector Indices
  19. Spiele in heterogenen Lerngruppen gemeinsam inszenieren
  20. Internetbasierte Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation
  21. Der Grundsatz der Subsidiarität der Verfassungsbeschwerde auf dem Prüfstand des Unionsrechts
  22. Qualifizierung und Motivation von Studierenden und Hochschulabsolventen für eine Existenzgründung
  23. Ästhetikkolumne
  24. Corrigendum to "Palaeoecological analysis of a Late Quaternary sediment profile in northern Oman" [Journal of Arid Environments 73 (2009) 296-305] (DOI:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2008.09.023)
  25. Transport of perfluoroalkyl acids in a water-saturated sediment column investigated under near-natural conditions
  26. Low-productive exporters are high-quality exporters
  27. § 35 Republik Malta
  28. Ökologien des Machens
  29. Individualisierung ist möglich
  30. The German Business Services Statistics Panel 2003 to 2007
  31. Inland sand ecosystems
  32. Trainingslehre,Testverfahren : Schnelligkeit und Schnellkraft einfach testen
  33. Soziale Differenzkategorien als Gegenstand der Lehrer*innenbildung
  34. Weiterentwicklung der Unternehmensberichterstattung