The Goals of Competition Law

Описание: BOOK REVIEW

THE GOALS OF COMPETITION LAW

Edited by Daniel Zimmer

Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd

ISBN: 978 0 85793 660 8

www.e-elgar.com


OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO LEGAL SCHOLARS, ACADEMICS AND ALL THOSE INTERESTED IN COMPETITION LAW AND COMPETITION ECONOMICS

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

In this work of reference the editor, Daniel Zimmer, brings together a truly international collection of 26 learned articles from leading academics and lawyers in the field of competition law and competition economics.

The expert contributors hail from a range of universities worldwide, from Harvard University and Yale Law School to Laval University in Canada, the University of Haifa, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Mejii University in Tokyo and, interestingly, the American Antitrust Institute in the United States.

These, of course, are only a few examples of the wide range of opinion and comment contained in this book on matters pertaining to competition law. Daniel Zimmer, the editor, is a Professor of Law from the University of Bonn and Member of the German Monopolies Commission.

It was Zimmer who organized the ASCOLA conference at the University of Bonn in 2010 at which this selection of papers was presented. (For ASCOLA read Academic Society for Competition Law).

Significantly, we're perusing this book just after 'Europe Day' May 9th which commemorates a now little known and seldom remarked upon event in the development of the European Community as a group of nations dedicated to -- basically -- fair trade.

We refer to the Schumann Declaration launched some 60 years ago by the same Robert Schumann who was instrumental in founding the European Coal and Steel Community, from which the European Economic Community evolved and which in turn led to the advent of the present European Union (EU).

The original aim of the EEC, one must recall, centered on establishing equal rights in the competition for trade. This means that trading nations and individual traders should each have a fair crack of the whip when selling things -- the basis of any market economy.

The lessons we are learning and have learnt in Europe over the past few decades will no doubt impact upon and influence many an emerging economy in the wider global context.

This book, based on the ASCOLA conference (chaired by Louis Kaplow of Harvard University) poses a number of questions relating to competition and specifically, competition law, two of which centre on the concept of 'freedom to compete' and on distributional fairness as a goal of competition law.

Particularly interesting is the final article by the editor which asks -- to cite just one example -- whether or not 'competition' means 'efficiency'. This, of course, is debatable and all the more interesting for that.

Published recently by Edward Elgar, this book, with its economics-based approach and international orientation, will certainly interest academic lawyers, graduate students and indeed policy makers whose decisions may affect the economic welfare of whole regions. With detailed footnotes and index, the compilation is also especially useful as a gateway to further research.