|
|
EU's Competition Policy v. USA's Antitrust : Antitrust in Payoff Matrix
Luňáčková, Petra ; Hrubý, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Gutiérrez Chvalkovská, Jana (referee)
EU's Competition Policy v. USA's Antitrust Antitrust in Payoff Matrix Abstract The thesis consists of two parts - comparative study and antitrust model. First part is dedicated to the comparison of European competition policy and American antitrust. It introduces both policies and focuses mostly on key differences between them, especially on the non-price vertical restraints and monopoly pricing. The economic theory is indecisive about the effects of vertical agreements on competition. The EU finds them often anticompetitive compared to the U.S. that believes in their procompetitive or neutral impact. Second part presents an antitrust model which describes the process of protecting competition and suggests optimal behavior for both enforcement officials and firms. In the game theory framework the payoff matrixes show the difference discussed in the first part and offer theoretical solution. Optimal strategies are derived for American, European and neutral policies and compared afterwards. The case study concludes the thesis and gives a real example of the difference between antitrust and competition policy. Key words: antitrust, competition policy, vertical mergers, game theory, payoff matrix, Article 101 and 102 of the TFEU, Sherman Act
|
|
|
EU's Competition Policy v. USA's Antitrust : Antitrust in Payoff Matrix
Luňáčková, Petra ; Hrubý, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Gutiérrez Chvalkovská, Jana (referee)
EU's Competition Policy v. USA's Antitrust Antitrust in Payoff Matrix Abstract The thesis consists of two parts - comparative study and antitrust model. First part is dedicated to the comparison of European competition policy and American antitrust. It introduces both policies and focuses mostly on key differences between them, especially on the non-price vertical restraints and monopoly pricing. The economic theory is indecisive about the effects of vertical agreements on competition. The EU finds them often anticompetitive compared to the U.S. that believes in their procompetitive or neutral impact. Second part presents an antitrust model which describes the process of protecting competition and suggests optimal behavior for both enforcement officials and firms. In the game theory framework the payoff matrixes show the difference discussed in the first part and offer theoretical solution. Optimal strategies are derived for American, European and neutral policies and compared afterwards. The case study concludes the thesis and gives a real example of the difference between antitrust and competition policy. Key words: antitrust, competition policy, vertical mergers, game theory, payoff matrix, Article 101 and 102 of the TFEU, Sherman Act
|
|
|
Protection of Competition and the leniency program
Krausová, Simona ; Bič, Josef (advisor) ; Jeníček, Vladimír (referee)
The diploma thesis addresses the issue of the effect of the introduction of leniency program and its reforms on the European competition policy and above all of its effect on investigation of forbidden cartel agreements. Leniency program is currently one of the main tools being implemented in fighting cartels. It works by providing immunity to the first company that provides relevant proof of the cartels existence. This work has three main goals. Firstly it aims to analyse the effectiveness of the leniency program and its reforms when it comes to uncovering cartels. The second goal is to unveil the European Commissions strategy concerning granting leniency and its development over the time. The last goal is to provide a quality analysis of all three forms of leniency and their mutual comparison. This diploma thesis is divided into four chapters: two theoretical and two practical chapters. The first one explains the issue of cartel agreements, individual types of cartels, investigation and its methods and the principals of imposing fines. The analysis of the leniency program itself, its introduction in 1996 and the following reforms in 2002 and 2006 will be the main topics of the second chapter. The third chapter contains the analysis of all Commissions decisions against cartels from 1993 till April 2016. It contains data relating to the development of number of decisions, the amount of fines, the size of the cartels and the percentage of the leniency granted in this period. The forth and the last chapter will focus on a case study of the LCD cartel and on the basis of theoretical findings contained in the first two chapters it will uncover the principles of this particular cartel and the investigation procedures.
|
|
|
Merger control in EU and USA
Ventová, Kateřina ; Zajíček, Miroslav (advisor) ; Pfeifer, Lukáš (referee)
This diploma thesis aims to compare the approaches of EU and USA to the merger control from the point of view of the competition policy. Its goal is to confirm the hypothesis that both these approaches converge, but there are still significant differences. The comparative method was used to achieve this goal. The necessary information was gained from law regulations, academic papers and books. The results is that in the last years, mainly after the reform of merger control in EU in 2004, the definition of the lessening of the effective competition has been converged and the same happened in the field of horizontal mergers. However there are still significant differences in the area of non-horizontal mergers, mainly because the approach of USA is based on the ideas of Chicago school, but the approach of EU is rather based on the post-Chicago economics. Other differences can be found in the fact, that US merger control system is judicial but in EU it is administrative. Apart of that the US antitrust authorities use more economics and econometrics. These findings are also proved by the arguments of EU and USA in the cases GE/Honeywell and DB/NYX, in which both jurisdictions decided differently.
|
|
|
Protection of competition in the EU and its use in the IT industry
Weber, Jan ; Bič, Josef (advisor) ; Hnát, Pavel (referee)
The main goal of this diploma thesis is to evaluate the protection of competition in the European Union. For this purpose in EU serves competition policy, whose application is in charge of the European Commission. During my research I chose to examine the IT industry, particularly on the Microsoft case, which became one of the most significant antitrust disputes over the past years. In the thesis I compare competition policy framework with the theoretical approaches of various economic schools. Then I monitor the Commission's investigation and I discuss the legitimacy of the accusations and actions. I conclude that the EU competition policy has significant flaws in its application. I find that the European Commission is trying to reduce Microsoft's market power at all costs because when I compare Commission's attitude to other companies with identical behavior, it is completely different.
|
guest ::
