Competition Law In Europe And America A Comparative Study

The policies of competition of Europe Union (EU) and United States (USA) follow the social-politics and the social-economics with great interest. Both of them have developed their proper school and idea of thought originated in the thought of Adam Smith. The aims of American antitrust law reflect their concern to the economic efficiency more than others and the discretionary power of their judges. The aims of the competition law of EU pay much attention to the freedom and openness of the internal market in which the efficient competition can march without distortion. Moreover, the EU confronts the problem of the sovereignty of its member states, which will never occur in the legislation and the enforcement of antitrust law in the United States.The historical background of the legislation of the competition law in both of them diverges one to the other. In USA there had been a vast unique internal market in which existed the free inter-states circulation of person, goods, service and capitals, but in Europe at that time after the two world war, the west Europe countries wished to reestablish their own economy in the war-devastating continent by setting up the high barriers of tariffs with a result of small pieces of market territory in Europe. The Treaty of Rome was signed by the dream of a peaceful unique Europe and by the Marshell Plan of USA with the purpose of constructing the market economy.Both of the competition laws in UE and in USA have the statutory source. Nevertheless, the great amount of judicial precedents determine the trend of development of antitrust law in USA, the decisions of Europe Court of Justice and the Commission of EU offer references only for the future cases. The competition law of EU has a significant similarity in the scope of application in which includes the following anti-competition practices: horizontal anti-competition practices, vertical anti-competition practices, the abuse of the dominant position, the merger/ acquisition or concentration. The USA pay much attention to whether the antitrust law can attack all of the vertical anti-competition practices, while the competition of EU focus on its priority to that of member states.Both of them employ the similar approach to define the relevant market by the doctrine of cross-elasticity of demand, the standard of physical characteristic and the usage of product, for the later, the EU use the term of "theories du faiceau d'indices", that is the theory of a bunch of indices. They both have the experience of acknowledging the sub-market, while EU considers in as the result of an atomization of market (Une atomization du Marché). They consider the participant to the market as natural person and legal person who engage in the commercial activities in the market enjoying the benefits and the right and bearing the obligations which stem from their performance. Once the public service corporation engages the economic activities, it will be considered as a participant to the market in which it enters despite of its special public mission. The two systems of competition law use "the doctrine of unique economic unit" to identify the responsibility of the corporation group. As far as the definition of competition is concerned, both of them believe that the competition comes from the demand of consumer. In USA, the article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act prescript the problem of anti-unfair competition, while the EU leaves the problem to the legislation of its member states. Both of them believes that the unfair competition practices include the counterfeiting product, counterfeiting trademark, confusing the sign of origin, disclosing a trade secret, false advertisement, sale at loss etc.Both of the antitrust law of US and the competition law of EU have not yet distinguished the horizontal anti-competition practices from the vertical anti-competition practice in their legislation. But they both confirm that the following practices between the competitors belong to illegal practices that are forbidden by both competitio...