ANTI-COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOUR PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR LAW

 

PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR LAW 28. ANTI-COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOUR

 

A Competitive law The Competition Act follows Article 81 and 82 of the European Community (EC) Treaty and is part of a body of law known as competitive law. Competition law regulates anti-competitive conduct that harms the market, such as excluding new competitors and putting up, or erecting, barriers to competition. It also covers abuse of a dominant position, for example by distorting competition or by predatory pricing – when goods are sold at less than their cost price to cut out rival businesses. B Competition inquiry Steve Jakes, a UK lawyer, is talking to a client about how anti-competitive practices and agreements are dealt with. ‘The Competition Commission was established by the Competition Act 1998 and its procedures are governed by provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002. Its purposes include carrying out inquiries into anticipated and completed mergers, and market investigations which other authorities, most often the government watchdog (the Office of Fair Trading, or OFT) or the Secretary of State refer to the Commission. C Information gathering, hearings, and remedies ‘For inquiries and investigations, information is collected from a range of sources. Parties are compelled to submit documents and the Commission can impose a monetary penalty for non-compliance with its requirements. It constitutes an offence to alter, suppress, or destroy documents, or to intentionally provide false or misleading information. Hearings are normally held privately with one party at a time, although public and joint hearings are possible. EXERCISES 28.1 Choose the correct phrase in brackets to complete the sentences. Look at B and C opposite to help you. 1. Not supplying documents requested by a competition inquiry can lead to (enforceable orders/ conflicts of interest/ a monetary penalty) 28.2 Complete the article. Look at A, B and C opposite to help you. Pay attention to the grammatical context. There is more than one possibility for one of the answers. SUPERMARKET COMPETITION INQUIRY MAY BREAK STRANGLEHOLD OF BIG FOUR (a) Supermarkets may be forced to sell off development sites and scale back expansion plans after the Office of Fair Trading yesterday signalled a full scale competition (1) _____________ into the UK’s “big four” grocers. (b) The OFT said supermarkets had driven through price cuts and seemingly improved quality and choice – but there was evidence they had also erected (2) ___________ to keep out new players and their move into convenience stores could 28.3 Which paragraphs (a-g) from the article above allege evidence of: 1. predatory pricing? 2. anti-competitive conduct? (two paragraphs) 3. abuse of a dominant position? (two paragraphs) Look at A opposite to help you.

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