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Chirita, Anca Daniela --- "Legal Interpretation and Practice versus Legal Theory: A Reconciliation of Competition Goals – Comment on Andriychuk" [2012] ELECD 407; in Zimmer, Daniel (ed), "The Goals of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Goals of Competition Law

Editor(s): Zimmer, Daniel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857936608

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Legal Interpretation and Practice versus Legal Theory: A Reconciliation of Competition Goals – Comment on Andriychuk

Author(s): Chirita, Anca Daniela

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

7. Legal interpretation and practice
versus legal theory: a reconciliation
of competition goals ­ comment on
Andriychuk
Anca Daniela Chiri*

1 INTRODUCTION

Based on the insights into the application of the theory of law to competi-
tion, the aim of this chapter is a possible reconciliation of goals in terms of
their comparative understanding in competition law and economics and of
recent policy statements.
In theory, utilitarian and deontological aspects of competition are com-
pleted by competition ethics, which includes deontological ethics in terms
of intentions or goodwill and the values of virtue, justice, and welfare.1
In practice, welfare economics and the deontological process-oriented
approach are intrinsically opposed to each other, namely, the utilitarian
vision, if it were reduced to a welfare maximisation calculus, to well-being,
fairness or equity among market participants.
Andriychuk questions whether competition is a `public' valued
good or a `means' to increase such utilitarian economic values as
consumer welfare. Thus, his deontological vision of competition also
includes one such particular value. He does not question why con-
sumer welfare, innovation or industrial growth are `external' values
and therefore not intrinsic to the competitive process itself, or if they
would fall under the same premise of welfare enhancing. Nor does he


* Dr. iur. (Saarland), Lecturer in Law, Durham Law School, UK. This
comment refers exclusively to the paper presented by Oles Andriychuk in Bonn on
28 May 2010 and not to the chapter that appears in this volume.
1 For the neo-liberal thinking of ...