【CASK EFFECT】1006G阅读全方位锻炼--难度【LSAT】1-19 补充知识

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From wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, has three main elements:

• prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business. This includes in particular the repression of cartels.
• banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others.
• supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to "remedies" such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licenses or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing

substance and practice of competition law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Protecting the interests of consumers (consumer welfare) and ensuring that entrepreneurs have an opportunity to compete in the market economy are often treated as important objectives. Competition law is closely connected with law on deregulation of access to markets, state aids and subsidies, the privatization of state owned assets and the establishment of independent sector regulators. In recent decades, competition law has been viewed as a way to provide better public services.[1] Robert Bork has argued that competition laws can produce adverse effects when they reduce competition by protecting inefficient competitors and when costs of legal intervention are greater than benefits for the consumers.[2] The history of competition law reaches back to the Roman Empire. The business practices of market traders, guilds and governments have always been subject to scrutiny, and sometimes severe sanctions. Since the twentieth century, competition law has become global. The two largest and most influential systems of competition regulation are United States antitrust law and European Community competition law. National and regional competition authorities across the world have formed international support and enforcement networks.


United States antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly) and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are designed to encourage competition in the marketplace. [1] These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both, or generally to violate standards of ethical behavior. Government agencies known as competition regulators, along with private litigants, apply the antitrust and consumer protection laws in hopes of preventing market failure. The term "antitrust" was originally formulated to combat "business trusts", now more commonly known as cartels. Other countries use the term "competition law". Many countries including most of the Western world have antitrust laws of some form; for example the European Union has provisions under the Treaty of Rome to maintain fair competition, as does Australia under its Trade Practices Act 1974.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law