Goals of Competiton Law Essay

concord to Barry Rodger and Angus Macculoch, rivalry rectitude concerns intervention in the marketplace place, when there is more or less problem with the competitive process or when there is market failure. This includes ordinary authority intervention and is establish on different concerns of the principal levelheaded systems. They go on to state that monopolies, cartels and mergers argon the three principal issues of come to for most contender law systems, the major concern with cartels and mergers being that, finally they will achieve a monopoly position, dominate the market and exploit their position. Generally, the aboriginal purpose of competition law is to ensure that markets for producing and selling products are efficaciously contestable.Competition law therefore exists to regulate the conduct of championshipes, by preventing them from entering into anticompetitive agreements and abusing a predominate position, to ensure open and second-rate competition for both consumers and businesses.Nations encounter competition laws for various reasons so it is important to state expressly if possible, in the legislation the goal that it seeks to achieve for easier implementation. Various goals consider been put across to justify the existence of competition law which are discussed in the prove discussion at length. DISCUSSION The consumer interest and protection from anticompetitive behaviours by cartels and firms with market might, has been stressed as the primary goal of competition law. In whatsoever economy there are competing interests between industry and consumers hence the origin wish to amass wealth at the expense of the latter. It is therefore requisite for competition law to protect the ignorant consumer from the gluttony competitive tendencies of firms. chthonian the UK Enterprise Act 2002, section 11, the importance of the consumer is seen where super complaints are do to the Office of funfair Trading (OFT) by designated consumer bodies.Also, the OFT fined Manchester United, and other football game clubs for their role in harming the consumer by resale footing maintenance, of replica football strips. another(prenominal) goal is to ensure preservation of liberty and prevention of the concentration of frugal author. R. Whishcharacterized this as the promotion of economic equity rather than economic qualification. It is a political ideal that relates to the pure competition objective, that economic power should be fairly distributed and is based on the idea that economic corporations should not become more influential than elected democratic governments.Jones and Suffrin therefore moot that competition law may dish out the purpose of upholding the foundation of full(a) democracy, by precluding the creation of excessive private power and that it decentralizes and disperses private power and protects individual freedoms, in a competitive market structure, where individual sellers and buyers are i nsignifi toleratet in relation to the size of the market.Competition law in any case aims at protecting competitors and ensuring fair competition. The argument behind this goal is based on the premise that, competition law should be applied to value the ability of miniatureer companies to compete more directly with established big companies. R.Whish reasons that the competiton authorities should, hold the ring and ensure that the pure guy is addicted a fair chance to succeed. That competition law should be concerned with both competitors and the process of competition. This is as well known as the democrat goal and has been heavily criticized by the Chicago school of antitrust analysis, who argue that antitrust intervention to protect competitors from their more competent rivals is harmful to consumer welfare, since small inefficient firms may take wealth from consumers.I subscribe to the celestial horizon that where a smaller firm is equally or more efficient than a rival but because of its financial resources it cannot survive a price war, competition law should protect it. Creation of unified markets and prevention of sentimental barriers to trade is another goal of competition law. This is to a fault cal conduct market integration, which led to the birth of the European Union (EU). Its overall aim was to integrate the fraction states, to create more united Europe, with a common market, economic and fiscal union, to achieve sustainable economic growth and economic development, to compete favorably in the world market. Indeed this resulted into the eventual birth of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which regulates a total of 27 European country markets and protects the regional economy of the EU. Competition law may as well as service social, economical or industrial, environmental and regional goals. For instance, before blessing of a merger competition authorities may look at other issues outside competition like job creat ion or job losses.Such goals should however be accommodated in other governmental arrangements to allow for meaningful competition. On analyzing the above goals, it can be think that there is impoverishment for competition law in a poor country like Kenya or Tanzania, to attain economic development. G.R Bhatiai stresses that the absence of fair competition eludes stakeholders the benefits of competition, persuading countries to either enact competition law or to evolve their existing legislation and to revamp Competition Authorities.In the discussion infra I majorly focus on Tanzania as per the question, considering her past socio-economic stages, the most key being, the Arusha Declaration 1967 which led to nationalization of all major means of production, hence liberalization of the economy in the mid 80s, leading to a dominant role of the private sector in commerce, though state own monopolies in the provision of social services, education and health still do exist. Accord ing to Louise du Pleiss et al, the challenges faced by developing countries Like Tanzania justify the acquire for competition law. That the general challenge faced by developing countries is spirited barriers to entry, yet for effective participation by any producer in the market, degree of accessibility to the market is important. These take the form of unrestrained business legalities such as licensing procedures, utmost taxes that limit imports of raw materials and a higher(prenominal) degree of state intervention in the form of state owned enterprises.Her market like any other developing country is also generally smaller compared to their developed counterparts, making a limited add up of firms to realize even devoteed distribution of resources and economies of scale. High production cost also act as a barrier to entry. Electricity for example costs US$ 1.11kwh, in Tanzania. In Uganda the same unit costs US$ 0.075 and KenyaUS$0.035, making it easier for investors to acce ss the latter markets. However, competition law can serve to improve, infrastructure for instance, which if underdeveloped limits competitiveness in the domestic market by barring entry. In Tanzania export Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined the distributor point between 1995-1999 and so did the import GDP, one of the causes being closure in manufacturing firms due to rising costs of production, hence making the market small ,with few or no substitutable goods. Also, the structure of the economy of Tanzania is such that a bulk of the wealth is held by a disproportionate minority of its population.Competition law serves as a solution by which these inequalities can be addressed.Major industries according to Louise du Pleiss such as water, electricity, transportation tend to be dominated by the state owned monopolies who in turn revilement their positions by charging excessive prices and tying goods and services. In Tanzania the Tanzania Electric Supply troupe (TANESCO), monopoli ses distribution of electricity and takes advantage of this to charge high prices. It is argued that such monopolies warn innovation, but through the promulgation and enforcement of a well-designed competition law, attainment of par is possible since provisions to curb abuses by dominant firms will have a positive impact on the proper functioning of markets and equitable distribution of wealth.For instance, Section 59 (2) of the The Botswana Competition Act, 2009 permits the Competition Authority to task whether a proposed merger may interalia, enhance competitiveness of a citizen owned small and medium size enterprise, to encourage fair competition in the market. Competition law however, serves as a tool in the relief of poverty, through the regulation of firms by ensuring that they do not charge high prices, which directly affects the consumer. It has been stated that due to Cartel conduct, countries such as Tanzania, chile and Malawi have suffered a rise in food prices hence more than 100 million people have been pushed to deeper poverty.However in due south Africa, two pharmaceutical giants accused of engaging in excessive set of branded antiretroviral had to engage in a settlement agreement hence medication fell between 58% and 88% in southeasterly Africa. It has been argued however that due to interalia lack of resources, skill and capacity to implement competition law, other concerns like poverty, illiteracy, and health should be attended to. The severe shortfall of trained professionals to assess the complex competition law concepts also questions the need for competition law in poor country like Tanzania.Also competition law perse cannot achieve the goals stated above for it to be beneficial to Tanzania. Furthermore, the Fair Competition Act needs to be amended, to deal with the challenges discussed above to discipline confidence in investors in the market and to protect consumers.CONCLUSIONthough arguments for and against the need for compet ition law have been advanced, it remains relevant to a greater extent and it must go hand in hand with the goals it aims to achieve. The question however which must be addressed is, whether competition law based on US or European models is relevant for an jejune market like Tanzanias which, like any other African country has virtually no culture of consumer advocacy and its small market can only accommodate a few suppliers. The answer should be in the negative but in this era of globalization, neocolonialism is evident which has make it a challenge to effectively implement competition law.