Averitt, Neil W. --- "Protecting Consumer Choice: Competition and Consumer Protection Law Together" [2011] ELECD 743; in Drexl, Josef; Grimes, S. Warren; Jones, A. Clifford; Peritz, J.R. Rudolph; Swaine, T. Edward (eds), "More Common Ground for International Competition Law?" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: More Common Ground for International Competition Law?

Editor(s): Drexl, Josef; Grimes, S. Warren; Jones, A. Clifford; Peritz, J.R. Rudolph; Swaine, T. Edward

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849803946

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Protecting Consumer Choice: Competition and Consumer Protection Law Together

Author(s): Averitt, Neil W.

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

3. Protecting consumer choice:
Competition and consumer
protection law together
Neil W. Averitt*

1 INTRODUCTION

Another chapter in this volume has discussed the role of choice in anti-
trust, and has suggested that competition law should begin to more explic-
itly protect the non-price qualities of variety, choice, and innovation, as
well as protecting competitive prices per se.1 This chapter concurs in that
assessment, and will propose a larger context into which that suggestion
will fit. It proposes that the concept of choice actually underlies both anti-
trust and consumer protection law. Viewing both of these bodies of law
together in the larger, more inclusive perspective of `choice' will lead to a
number of enforcement advantages as well as to benefits for consumers.
It will integrate the two bodies of law; confirm the validity of the choice
perspective of antitrust; and from the new context it will suggest some
particular legal principles of competition law and possible new areas of
enforcement interest.2
The discussion that follows is divided into five principal sections: What



* The author is a member of the planning staff at the US Federal Trade
Commission. The views expressed here are the author's own, and are not necessar-
ily the views of the FTC or of any individual Commissioner.
1 See RH Lande, `Consumer Choice as the Best Way to Recenter the

Mission of Competition Law', Ch. 2, above. For a more elaborate treatment
see NW Averitt and RH Lande, `Using the "Consumer Choice" ...