Course Description

As government measures are increasingly brought under regional and multilateral trade disciplines, attention is shifting to practices of enterprise that distort or restraint trade.

The course focuses on restrictive business practices of an international scope and how they may be addressed by trade and competition rules. It includes detailed discussion of successes and failures of the current unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral trading system to address international competition law problems, options to regulate competition law in the WTO and through other means, and a review of international case law in this area.

Course Objectives

This course is designed to help participants with an understanding of economic principles of competition policy (antitrust policy). Participants will get basis to understand the main economic foundations of competition policy, to be able to apply the main economic tools of competition policy and to understand the role of competition policy as a major component of economic efficiency and welfare. Participants will

• Be able to recognize and analyse the core practices which create competion and trade problems that are not yet addressed fully by existing rules
• Consider the practical ramifications of holding governments to commitments on non-discrimination and market access, with respect to how they regulate restrictive business practices. We examine some cases through the eyes of both trade and competition policy, showing how sometimes the vision can get blurred.