Competition policy

Although there had been legislation about competition in elizabethan England, modern competition policy had its origin in United States Antitrust legislation of the late nineteenth century . Its principal objective is nowadays the pursuit of economic efficiency, although the early antitrust legislators may have had wider political objectives in mind. Its introduction outside the United States began in Europe after the second world war, and it has since spread to most developed countries. Its early development was generally influenced by early antitrust practice, but subsequent intellectual and legal developments have brought about significant modifications.

Uncertainties about the likely impact of competition policy upon the practice of business arise mainly from the fact that its operation requires the exercise of a considerable degree of expert judgement. Its legislative framework provides no more than a broad indication of the intentions of the policymakers who devised it, and it delegates to the authorities which it appoints, a wide range of discretion in their performance of the task of giving practical effect to those intentions. Also, its rationale is in some respects incomplete, leaving scope for a range of interpretations.