Brazil is currently discussing the introduction of a nation-wide Fixed Book Price (“FBP”) policy, thus providing context for a discussion of its welfare benefits. There is a rift between the reasons for implementing FBP regimes, and those used to scrutinize them. In order for the debate surrounding the pros and cons of implementing FBP regimes to become more productive, one must investigate the links between the reasons for designing and enforcing such policies, on one side, and standard antitrust analysis, on the other. There are many interesting arguments at the table that both corroborate and compromise the case for an FPB policy. However, throughout history, these policies have experimented cognizable trends. The objective FBP regimes pursue and their design have changed subtly, yet relevantly throughout history. In our view, the current academic and public policy debate surrounding FBP regimes, in both countries considering adopting or revoking them, would benefit from an enhanced awareness of these trends and their policy implications. Ultimately, so would the antitrust analysis of these policies. We argue that a better grasp of these trends could potentially result in a more sober examination of the welfare risks associated with FBP policies.

The damages actions reform of the European Union is predetermined to fail in achieving its stated goal of full compensation. There are two main reasons for this. First, the Directive on damages actions fails to maintain a balance between the claims of direct and indirect purchasers. Second, the EU policy is not designed to collect a large group of antitrust victims, who have suffered only a low-value harm (e.g., end consumers). The only way to achieve compensation effectiveness is to overstep the bounds of the EU compensatory regime, which is trapped in the grip of conservatism. In such circumstances, this article will explore three forceful scenarios of collective redress that include different types of deterrence-based remedies. The principal aim is to assess the chances of these scenarios in achieving full compensation. After assessing them, the best possible mechanism for compensating victims will be designed. In turn, it will allow the evaluation of to what extent such a scheme can ensure the achievement of full compensation.

‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act’ of 2010 (‘RAFSA’ or the ‘Dodd-Frank Act’) was the first set of statutes in any country that attempted to simultaneously address the Global Financial Crisis, the national securities law framework, the structure of the executive branch of the federal government, and delegation of powers to federal government agencies (to the detriment of state governments). Other countries have enacted statutes that are similar to RAFSA. However, RAFSA and similar statutes in many countries are inefficient and have failed to address the fundamental problems in financial systems, and parts of RAFSA are unconstitutional.

In this article, the phenomenon of path dependency has been addressed in view of the harmonization of cooperative law in the EU. The question is raised whether and how the legislative harmonization has an impact on co-operators in their efforts of setting up and maintaining efficient cooperative organizations and whether in this respect the Statute for the European Cooperative Society (hereinafter: SCE) is a helpful tool to facilitate the enhancement of national statutes on cooperatives as well as to provide the legal infrastructure to facilitate cross-border cooperation amongst and reorganizations of cooperatives in the EU.
The case for the cooperative as a viable business form gained momentum in the EU policy debate with the development of the SCE Statute in 2003, the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis in 2008 and with the endorsement of the cooperative business concept by the United Nations and the International Labour Organization in 2012. If the sound development of cooperatives as an alternative legal business form vis-à-vis investor-owned firms is considered a policy instrument to enhance societal business activities – notably in the field of agriculture and social economy – it raises the question how cooperatives should be regulated to fulfil their function in this respect.
The key argument presented in this article is that due to strong tendencies of path dependency a top-down approach of EU law-making was and is not a feasible option. The cooperative as a multifaceted institution requires a multifaceted approach taking into account the historical legislative developments of distinctive jurisdictions as well as the historical economic development of cooperative organizations in their specific jurisdiction. However, the existence of path dependency and the lack of regulatory arbitrage as well as regulatory competition prevent the market from generating efficient model statutes for cooperatives taking into account the specific needs of cooperatives and their co-operators.

Knowledge and innovation, which are the basis of intellectual property rights, are public goods leading to some kind of market failure in terms of positive externalities. Such a market failure undermines the motivation for production of knowledge and innovation, which in turn would be a social loss and distributive injustice. Therefore, there has to be a response beyond the mere respect for basic property rights under Islamic law according to the Rule of Prohibition of Harm to others. The general application of such a rule and within the private law paradigm confers merely normal protection to intellectual property rights, like any other property rights, which is too little too late. However, affording the extra protection and special privileges to the owner of such rights as a mechanism to compensate the market and private law failure requires a different interpretation of this rule. This article suggests that ownership rights in knowledge and innovation could benefit from this rule at two levels: a general level of basic rights and a special level of privileges based on a social trade-off and distributive justice to avert a social loss. As such, Islamic law is capable of offering such special privileges to the owner of intellectual property rights who is willing to make a deal with society for improved but limited property rights.

Over the past two decades behavioural economics has gained widespread consensus, and, as a consequence, is affecting many areas of law and economics. Antitrust is currently providing an interesting case study of this cultural-academic trend with a growing number of articles and comments focusing on “behavioural antritrust”. This article considers the state of the art of the behavioural approach to antitrust, taking the case of predatory pricing as useful test-bed for better evaluating practical perspectives of such an approach. The article suggests a “step beyond” by sketching a cognitive upgrade of antitrust. This move is coherent with a broader cognitive law framework that is in line with what is happening within contemporary economic theory.

After three years of enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has issued its own merger review guidelines and regulations. It has also published the decisions of eleven cases that were either blocked or approved with conditions. In this paper we review China’s rules for the implementation of merger control and analyze the patterns and implications from the recent case decisions. We find that although China’s merger control policy is largely consistent with international practice in many respects, there are still a few areas where China’s practice differs from those in other jurisdictions. These differences and their implications are analyzed in the article.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as seen by observers, resembles a greedy international cartel that preys on the public in defiance of market competition. High oil prices are considered as a principal cause of the US economic woes. Some US congressmen pinpointed OPEC’s alleged inconsistency with the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and called upon the US administration to open dispute settlement proceedings against OPEC. This article discusses the legal issues arising from a US action at the WTO level against OPEC countries. The first sections of the article comprise an institutional review of the WTO and OPEC. The article addresses the interplay between the WTO and OPEC. It then illustrates the central provisions of the WTO that can be used for arguments and counter-arguments concerning such a WTO action. It culminates with a set of concluding thoughts.

Private governance is currently being evoked as a viable solution to many public policy goals. However, in some circumstances it has shown to produce more harm than good, and even disastrous consequences like in the case of the financial crisis that is raging in most advanced economies. Although the current track record of private regulatory schemes is mixed, policy guidance documents around the world still require that policymakers award priority to self- and co-regulation, with little or no additional guidance being given to policymakers to devise when, and under what circumstances, these solutions can prove viable from a public policy perspective. With an array of examples from several policy fields, this paper approaches regulation as a public-private collaborative form and attempts to identify possible policy tools to be applied by public policymakers to efficiently and effectively approach private governance as a solution, rather than a problem. We propose a six-step theoretical framework and argue that IA techniques should: (i) define an integrated framework including both the possibility that private regulation can be used as an alternative or as a complement to public legislation; (ii) Involve private parties in public IAs in order to define the best strategy or strategies that would ensure achievement of the regulatory objectives; and (iii) Contemplate the deployment of indicators related to governance and activities of the regulators and their ability to coordinate and solve disputes with other regulators.