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Shaffer, Gregory C.; Nesbitt, Nathaniel H.; Weber Waller, Spencer --- "Criminalizing cartels: A global trend?" [2015] ELECD 1292; in Duns, John; Duke, Arlen; Sweeney, Brendan (eds), "Comparative Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 301

Book Title: Comparative Competition Law

Editor(s): Duns, John; Duke, Arlen; Sweeney, Brendan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804196

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Criminalizing cartels: A global trend?

Author(s): Shaffer, Gregory C.; Nesbitt, Nathaniel H.; Weber Waller, Spencer

Number of pages: 44

Abstract/Description:

For most countries, competition law is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 1950, only ten jurisdictions had competition laws. Today more than 120 jurisdictions do and more than eighty of these systems have commenced since 1980. Officials from these jurisdictions now interact regularly through networked organizations, such as the International Competition Network (ICN) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). There is no binding multilateral treaty mandating that countries have a competition law system that prescribes certain behavior, or create specialized institutions to enforce these prescriptions, although the North American Free Trade Agreement and a number of other free trade agreements signed by the United States (US) have short provisions that require countries to adopt and enforce laws against anti-competitive business conduct. Yet such prescriptions and institutions now exist in all major economies, creating what can be viewed as a transnational legal order, a collection of formalized legal norms and associated organizations and actors that authoritatively order the understanding and practice of law across national jurisdictions. Combating international cartels is one of the central goals of this transnational legal order, and there appears to be greater normative convergence on this antitrust issue than any other among governments.