Competition law in different countries around the world

The competition law seeks to guarantee the free market by regulating the non-competitive conduct from companies. This is also known as the antitrust law and it is regulated by public and private agencies.

The competition law is centered on prohibiting agreements or practices that restrain free commerce and the competition between companies. The government supervises all of the big agreements between companies to identify if they will have a meaningful impact on the economy or if they will create a monopoly such that the agreement might slow down commerce.

The government supervises, not only the agreements between big companies but also the functions and acquisitions between big corporations. These transactions can be fully prohibited or approved with conditions like the obligation to allow licenses or access to facilities so that other companies can keep competing.

Nowadays 38 countries have competition law. We are going to explain how the law is applied to 5 of these countries: the United States of America, Argentina, France, India, and Mexico.

United States of America

The Sherman Act law is directed towards persevering the free competition. This law contains two main provisions. The first one is that any contract, combination in the form of a trust or other class, or restrictive conspiracy of traffic or commerce between states or with foreign countries is declared illegal. The second provision is that it considers a criminal offense punishable by any person who monopolizes or tries to monopolize any part of the activity or trade between or the various states or with foreign nations and any person who co-operates or enters into combination with any other person or persons. to monopolize any part of the trade between federated states or with other countries.

Argentina

In Argentina, the Law on the Defense of Competition was enacted in 1999 and updated in 2018. The law sanctions any action that restricts, imitates or distorts competition or market access for having a dominant position. The law modified the rights of the people and companies that sued those who were affected by damages and prejudices. With its 2018 reform, updates to the law increased, a decentralized entity was created for its application, in addition to the unsportsmanlike conduct. This is defined by law as an agreement between two or more competitors to establish prices or obligations. Although the law may seem to fulfill its purpose, there are many who specify that it has not helped enough. Argentina has lost competitiveness of companies in recent years, according to experts because the law does not guarantee stability or get rid of uncertainty.

France

Legal processes concerning competition law can be initiated by companies or individuals. It's more common for companies to be sued because someone claims they infringed on this law. Besides the legal framework given by EU law, France has many laws that deal with fair competition. Both of the parties that sign a contract are entitled to sue for damages if the terms are violated.

They can also file a complaint in the Autorité de la Concurrence and ask for an investigation of the breaching party's actions. However, these investigations usually last several years. The claimant needs to provide the burden of proof to evidence how they lost their profit and because of how expensive it is to begin a claim, they're quite rare. They can cost between 100,000 and 200,000 euros. Despite this, there has been an increasing number of people bringing in lawsuits in France, because of the possibility of winning back damages.

India

In India, there is a new enforcement authority, The Competition Commission of India (CCI), that is responsible for the enforcement and administration of the scheme of the competition act.

The CCI has between five or six members that will be chosen for the government of India and have to ensure compliance and make sure there isn’t any inquiry concerning an anti-competitive agreement or abuse of dominant position either on its own, based on information or knowledge in that specific possession. The Competition act grants the CCI Jurisdiction over this agreement or any doubtful behavior like imposing services, limiting or restricting the production of services, indulging in practice that may result in denial of market access or using someone’s dominant position to protect someone else.

México

In México, the purpose of this Law is to promote, protect and guarantee free market access and economic competition, as well as to prevent, investigate, combat, prosecute effectively, severely punish and eliminate monopolies, monopolistic practices, unlawful concentrations, barriers to entry and economic competition, as well as other restrictions to the efficient operation of markets. It is worth mentioning that any person can file a complaint about any monopolistic practices or illegal concentrations.

With the previous examples, we can see what is intended to have a competition law is to make the rules and market conditions as equal as possible for those who want to participate. Although this does not reach all cases, at least there are forms of denunciation that can give space to those who are affected by the lack of fair competition. In the end, it is about trial and error, because not all countries are the same for what they should have but they have the law itself is already a big step.