Description

This talk will consider the appropriate role for competition law in economic crises. When faced with a crisis, a frequent response is to relax either the enforcement of a jurisdiction’s competition regime or the competition rules themselves. This is often done with the encouragement of the business community which will argue that they can assist in mitigating the crises through closer cooperation and / or collusion. I argue that this response is wrong. The goal of competition law is to address market failure due to the monopoly problem. To relax competition law adds “more monopoly” to the situation–which will be unlikely to solve the (or even mitigate) the crisis. I look at several historical examples, including the UK’s response to the COVID crisis to illustrate my argument.

3.30PM    Registration
4.00PM    Welcome by Prof. Christian Witting
4.05PM    Presentation by Prof Bruce Wardhaugh
5.00PM    Q&A moderated by Prof. Christian Witting
5.30PM    End