Budzinski on An International Multilevel Competition Policy System

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Issues of antitrust institutional choice are critical in an increasingly global environment in which conduct has effects across a number of different jurisdictions.  This is an issue of particular importance to me and I have a forthcoming working paper (up next month on SSRN) on this issue.  Oliver Budzinski of the University of Marburg has published a working paper entitled "An International Multilevel Competition Policy System" that attempts to address the global gap in antitrust enforcement.

ABSTRACT: This paper develops a proposal for an international multilevel competition policy system, which draws on the insights of the analysis of multilevel systems of institutions. In doing so, it targets to contribute to bridge a gap in the current world economic order, i.e. the supranational governance of private international restrictions to market competition. Such a governance can effectively be designed against the background of a combination of the well-known nondiscrimination principle and a lead jurisdiction model. Put very briefly, competition policy on the global level restricts itself to the selection and appointment of appropriate lead jurisdictions for concrete cross-border antitrust cases, while the substantive treatment remains within the competence of the existing national and regional-supranational antitrust regimes.