Zimmer, Daniel --- "The Basic Goal of Competition Law: To Protect the Opposite Side of the Market" [2012] ELECD 426; in Zimmer, Daniel (ed), "The Goals of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Goals of Competition Law

Editor(s): Zimmer, Daniel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857936608

Section: Chapter 26

Section Title: The Basic Goal of Competition Law: To Protect the Opposite Side of the Market

Author(s): Zimmer, Daniel

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

26. The basic goal of competition law:
to protect the opposite side of the
market
Daniel Zimmer* 35




1 INTRODUCTION

The goals of competition law appear to present an unresolved problem. A
core issue in this debate concerns the intricate relationship of competition
as a process and its desired outcomes. A prevailing consensus seems to be
that efficiency is among the desired outcomes of competition. However,
the law has to make a decision as to whether in the first instance it protects
competition as a process.
Some economists argue that the term `competition' is tantamount to
efficiency. In their view, if a legal rule refers to competition, it means
efficiency. This perception may be explained by the fact that industrial
economists are able to depict efficiency in mathematical models, whereas
the term `competition' leaves them clueless. Therefore `industrial organi-
zation' can come into play if we refer to efficiency. But is this sufficient
reason to refer in the first instance to efficiency when applying competition
law? Apparently, there are good reasons primarily to refer to competition
and not to efficiency or consumer welfare.
US antitrust law relies on the term competition, not efficiency.
Admittedly, we find no reference to the notion of `competition' in the
Sherman Act of 1890. In Section 1, the Act prohibits unreasonable
`restraints of trade' and similarly excludes `monopolization' and an
`attempt to monopolize' in Section 2. The Clayton Act of 1914 refers
directly to competition: where the effect of price discrimination `may
be substantially to ...