Module description:
The module will go through the main topics of global competition laws. Though it will mostly focus on the EU and US legal systems, as prototypes of antitrust/competition laws, it will also focus on competition regulation as it comes out from trade regulation and preferential trade agreements. The main premise and learning objective of the module is to teach the main legal and economic ideas and analytical tools of competition law that underlie doctrinal and positive law in these key legal systems.
Indicative seminar topics include:
- Objectives of competition law
- Market definition
- Cartels
- Concerted practices / oligopoly problem
- [Per se / rule of reason]
- Unilateral behaviour (with few examples: Microsoft, Google)
- Mergers
- State action
- State enterprises and public monopolies
- State subsidies
- Developing countries (competition law and development)