The widespread move towards more market-driven models of political economy combined with the expanding internationalisation of business and commerce has led to a series of proposals for global competition rules. To date these proposals have been hotly contested. The purpose of this book is to investigate in some depth whether there is a rational foundation for pursuing international competition rules, and what form these laws should take. The book takes examples from existing competition laws around the world, in particular the US and the EU both of which have a long history of enforcing...

This book addresses the phenomenon of mergers that may result in non-coordinated effects in oligopolistic markets. Such cases are sometimes referred to as "non-collusive oligopolies," or "gap cases" and there is a concern that they might not be covered by the substantive test that some Member States use for merger assessment. Ioannis Kokkoris examines the argument that the European Community Merger Regulation (Regulation 4064/89) did not capture gap cases and considers the extent to which the revised substantive test in Regulation 139/2004 deals with the problem of non-collusive...

This book provides a critical analysis of merger control regimes in the former socialist countries with small market economies, looking at the unique challenges facing these economies. Questions will be asked as to what extent these countries have had to follow dictation from the EU and whether this implementation of EU merger control rules has been justified from the point of view of these countries' economic situations.

The book will analyse the merger control regimes in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia. However, reference will be made to other small market...