New Developments in Competition Law and Economics

This book further develops both the traditional and the behavioural approach to competition law, and applies these approaches to a variety of timely issues. It discusses several fundamental questions regarding competition law and economics, and explores the applications of competition law and economics. In turn, the book analyses the interplay of intellectual property rights and patents in various aspects of competition law, and investigates the impacts that developments in information technology, such as big data analytics, have on competition law. The book also discusses the impact of energy law reforms on energy markets from a competition law perspective.Competition law is a classic field of economic analysis. This is largely due to the fact that competition law uses terms such as market, price, and competition and must therefore rely on economic know-how and analyses. In the United States, economic analysis has greatly influenced not just the scholarship on antitrust law, but also judicial decisions and agency enforcement. Antitrust law and economics are based on the traditional paradigm of neoclassical economics, which relies on the assumption that the market players, i.e. consumers and producers, are rational. This approach to competition law was later received in Europe under the banner of a "e;more economic approach"e;.For the past two decades, behavioural law and economics, which seeks to generate better insights into legal phenomena by providing more realistic psychological foundations for economic models, and to offer a multitude of applications in legislation and legal adjudication, has challenged the traditional economic approach to law in general and, more recently, to competition law specifically.

Part I: Foundations of Competition Law.- 1 Justifying Competition Law in the Face of Consumers’ Bounded Rationality.- 2 Two Contexts of Economics in Competition Law.- 3 The Third Way: A Conciliatory Approach Between “Freedom to Compete” and the “More Economic Approach” for European Competition Law An Outline for the Introduction of a Multiple Goals Approach in Theory and Jurisprudence.- Part II: Applications of Competition Law.- 4 An Impact on Competitiveness of Fiscal Devaluation, Deregulation in Service Sectors and Economic Activity in EU Countries 1995-2013.- 5 Taking Misleading Information Seriously: A Law and Economics Perspective on Unfair Competition Law.- 6 De minimis Exceptions for Hard-core Restrictions in Swiss Antitrust Law.- Latest Developments in Light of the Elmex Decision.- 7 Whole Foods, Fresh Concerns? How Recoupment Requirement Misses the Mark on Amazon’s Anticompetitive Practices.- Part III: Intellectual Property Rights and Patents.- 8 Blocking Patents and the Process of Innovation.- 9 Understanding the Implications of (the Lack of) International Competition Laws and Strong Intellectual Property Rights for Diversity.- 10 Excessive Pharmaceutical Prices as an Anticompetitive Practice – Reviving Compulsory Licensing in Competition Law & Antitrust.- Part IV: Impact of Information Technology.- 11 Disruptive Technologies and Competition Law.- 12 The Power of Algorithms: Understanding the Implications of Big Data Analytics for Competition Law.- 13 Regulating Big Data: A Competition Law or Consumer Protection Concern?.- 14 Competition Law and Most Favoured Nation Clauses in Online Markets.- Part V: Energy Markets and Competition Law.- 15 Energy Competition: From Commodity to Boutique and Back.- 16 EU Competition Law, Renewable Energies, and Tendering Models.