On Public Utilities Antitrust Law Regulating

Public utilities are the important part of the market economy, the products or services provided by it are necessary for other firms'production and people's daily life. So, the quality of these products and services determine the quality of the other firms'production and people's life. Many countries managed the public utilities as a monopoly way in order to protect the public interest, and this mode ran well. However, with the problems emerged, it is necessary to find another effective way to instead of monopoly. Competition is the best mode. Competition is the essence and ultimate impetus of the market economy. The market economy is a dead pool without competition. Antitrust law is the constitution of the market economy. Protecting the competition using antitrust law is the effect measure of reform of public utilities, and it is also the necessary path to construct the modern market economy.Things are always developing. The features of public utilities are changing too. As the scope of the natural monopoly of public utilities shrinking, the theory of natural monopoly as the basis of governmental regulation of public utilities must be amending. The public interest theory as the other theoretical basis can not be practiced. On the other side, the governmental control is failed because the government may be"seized"or the cost of regulation is too high. It does not enhance the public interest, however, it even protect the monopoly interest. So, the reform for the public utilities is necessary. Behaviors of public utilities should be regulated by rules of antitrust law. The public utilities can be divided into natural monopoly and non-natural monopoly. The emphasis of regulation is different when antitrust law regulates different public utilities. It emphases the regulation of the abuse of dominant market status in the scope of natural monopoly, however, its regulating emphasis are the regulation to the restrictive agreements and the concentration of firms. The public utilities locate in different industries and own different features, so it calls on the combination of antitrust law and other laws on different industries in order to regulate the public utilities effectively, and the industry law should absorb the content of antitrust law.