Antitrust Laws: Promoting Competition and Free Markets
Critically important but commonly misunderstood, antitrust laws are meant to promote competition and protect consumers. Here’s everything you need to know.
America's antitrust laws promote competition and benefit consumers.
Antitrust laws ensure competition in a free and open market economy, which is the foundation of any vibrant economy. And healthy competition among sellers in an open marketplace gives consumers the benefits of lower prices, higher quality products and services, more choices, and greater innovation.
The core of U.S. antitrust law was created by three pieces of legislation: the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Antitrust Act. These laws have evolved along with the market, vigilantly guarding against anti-competitive harm that arises from abuse of dominance, bid rigging, price fixing, and customer allocation.
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U.S. legislative proposals could undermine U.S. economic and security interests and strengthen foreign rivals without any apparent benefit to U.S. consumers.
America's Antitrust Laws: Explained in 60 Seconds
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Antitrust laws ensure competition thrives, providing consumers with lower prices and higher-quality products and services. However, some seek to rewrite these laws and undermine consumer power in the marketplace. Before Congress starts making unnecessary and harmful changes, it’s important to set a few things straight.
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For the fourth consecutive year a practitioner survey has been conducted to solicit feedback intended to better inform competition authorities and the International Competition Network (ICN) of the views and experiences practitioners have when working with their respective competition authority. Earlier surveys supported the work of the ICN’s Investigative Process Project as part of the Agency Effectiveness Working Group as well as the ICN’s Recommended Practices for Merger Notification and Review Procedures.