Law Notes Competition Law Notes
Competition Law notes fully updated for recent exams at Oxford and Cambridge. These notes cover all the LLB and BCL competition law cases and so are perfect for anyone doing an LLB in the UK or a great supplement for those doing LLBs abroad, whether that be in Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong or Malaysia (University of London).
These were the best Competition Law notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through forty-eight LLB samples from outstanding la...
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Furse on agreements, collusion and parallel conduct
Horizontal agreements may raise concern that competition is being harmed, but may be difficult to detect
Problems of policing horizontal conduct may be exacerbated in oligopoly markets where there are a few competitors
Cartel agreements may be difficult to put in place, but they have long-term success
Vertical agreements are less likely to raise competitive concern, unless they are linked to the exercise of market power, or contribute to the exclusion of competitors from a market
Horizontal restraints
Horizontal agreements are those between firms at the same level of production or distribution
In US, antitrust rules that price fixing is condemned per se, and is not subject to a rule of reason Trans-Missouri Freight Assoc
The more concentrated a mkt is, the more likely that firms will be able to successfully dampen competition via collusion
Note suggestion by Cournot in 1838 that even assuming independent decisions made by oligopolists, prices in such a market would be higher than in perfectly competitive ones
They achieve a “Nash-Cournot” equilibrium
Cartels
Cartel = “Explicit arrangement designed to eliminate competition”
Perfect cartel would be one in which the group as a whole set production where MC for the group equalled MR
I.e. the cartel would behave as a single-firm monopoly
Two major problems face any cartel:
Agreement
Adherence
Agreement
Several factors make it difficult for members to reach this
Product differentiation may mean members have to agree on a complex pricing scheme rather than a single price
Note this is a problem for OPEC, as oil is actually produced in different grades
Larger firms, which can benefit from economies of scale, may want lower prices than smaller firms
Adherence
If a cartel is successful in restricting its joint output and raising price, it creates an incentive for individual member firms to cheat, expand their outputs and undermine the cartel
A single firm will always profit by cheating on the cartel
I.e. cartels are inherently unstable
Cf Game theory: prisoner’s dilemma – a dominant strategy leads to a sub-optimal outcome
Only if the two prisoners can exchange information during the process, and are prepared to forgo some short-term benefit in order to improve their collective position, can it be assumed that the outcome will be optimal to the two
Action by authorities
Given the difficulty of detecting cartels, most authorities attempt to implement measures designed to destabilise them
Largely based on pioneering work of George Stigler in 1964
Focused on fact that much cartel activity is secretive
Firms will be faced with a reduced demand as prices rise
Difficult for firms to determine whether demand reductions are the result of this or of cheating by other members
One of the tasks of comp policy is to make info exchange more risky – availability of hard physical evidence of cartelisation normally brings swift condemnation
Activities of trade associations tend to be closely scrutinised by comp authorities
Some argued that where cartels exist, they may be limited in harm
But recent evidence suggests otherwise, i.e. 2006 study showing overcharge may be as high as 40%
Price leadership
It can be difficult to determine whether prices are being maintained across a cartel or whether price leadership is present
Markham – there are 3 categories of price leadership:
Dominant firm leadership – it is likely to be able to set prices as if it were a monopolist, and small firms have little to gain from diverging much
Barometric price leadership – characteristic of mkts where price leader changes frequently, response to any change in price tends to be less swift than in the situation where there is a dom firm, cf Zinc Powder Group
Markets where the product is homogenous and there are few producers facing similar costd – poses greatest problem for comp authorities; see UK in petrol industry
Vertical restraints
In case of most goods, there is a chain of production before the product reaches the customer
Vertical agreement is one between firms at different stages of production
A vertical agreement is to some extent a substitute for vertical integration
Therefore surprising that EC, early on, attacked an agreement between a manufacturer and a distributor as being anti-competetive
Consten and Grundig, 1966
Chicago school argues broadly that all vertical restraints should be lawful
But today, economists are keen not to generalise
Argument in favour of examining vertical restraints is that while they may encourage inter-brand competition, they may restrict intra brand competition (i.e. between two sellers of nike shoes)
This may not be a significant problem if the buyer has wide choice
OFT Report puts forward 3 considerations
Is there horizontal mkt power either at the level of the manufacturer or the level of retailer?
Is consumer likely to be significantly affected by the restriction?
Is the result of the restriction to generate efficiency gains?
It is commonly assumed that vertical restraints are necessarily introduced to benefit the party higher up the chain of production but this is not always the case
One of the strongest forms of vertical restraint is Retail Price Maintenance (RPM)
Resellers are restricted in their ability to set prices
Usually the manufacturer or supplier specifies a min price below which the reseller may not sell
Immediate beneficiary tends to be the retailer
This was the only act condemned per se in the UK by the 1998 comp act
Art 81 EC
Summary
81 applies to coordinated conduct which appreciably restricts competition]
Applies equally to agreements, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices
Most important Q is whether there is in the conduct a prevention, restriction, or distortion of comp within art 81(1)
Some forms of conduct, such as horizontal price fixing, are per se...
Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Competition Law Notes.
Competition Law notes fully updated for recent exams at Oxford and Cambridge. These notes cover all the LLB and BCL competition law cases and so are perfect for anyone doing an LLB in the UK or a great supplement for those doing LLBs abroad, whether that be in Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong or Malaysia (University of London).
These were the best Competition Law notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through forty-eight LLB samples from outstanding la...
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