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Gal, Michal S. --- "International Antitrust Solutions: Discrete Steps or Causally Linked?" [2011] ELECD 755; in Drexl, Josef; Grimes, S. Warren; Jones, A. Clifford; Peritz, J.R. Rudolph; Swaine, T. Edward (eds), "More Common Ground for International Competition Law?" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: More Common Ground for International Competition Law?

Editor(s): Drexl, Josef; Grimes, S. Warren; Jones, A. Clifford; Peritz, J.R. Rudolph; Swaine, T. Edward

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849803946

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: International Antitrust Solutions: Discrete Steps or Causally Linked?

Author(s): Gal, Michal S.

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

15. International antitrust solutions:
Discrete steps or causally linked?
Michal S. Gal*

1 INTRODUCTION

In the past two decades a growing number of jurisdictions explored and
experimented with solutions to competition problems created by the
internationalization of trade. The level of cooperation among jurisdic-
tions has arisen in parallel with the realization that unilateral enforce-
ment provides a limited solution to competition law challenges with
an extra-territorial dimension. Indeed, increasing levels, or `steps', of
international antitrust cooperation have been taken or have been sug-
gested, ranging from unilateral extra-territorial enforcement of domestic
laws to the yet theoretical possibility of a supra-national competition
authority. The step analogy suggests that lower steps lead to higher ones.
This chapter explores to what extent this is true: whether international
competition law solutions based on lower levels of cooperation provide a
catalyst and sometimes even a basis for higher ones, or whether coopera-
tion levels are not causally linked to each other. It does so, inter alia, by
focusing on one specific cooperative competition law solution: regional
competition law agreements and exploring their effects on higher
cooperative steps.
Accordingly, the first part of the chapter identifies five different levels of
international antitrust cooperation. The second part focuses on a specific
example of such cooperation: regional competition law agreements. The
proliferation of such agreements in recent years is so profound that it
can be termed `the new wave of regionalism'.1 The third part ties the two
previous ones together by exploring whether ...