The food industry is a notoriously complex economic sector that has not received the attention it deserves within legal scholarship. Production and distribution of food is complex because of its polycentric character (as it operates at the intersection of different public policies) and its dynamic evolution and transformation in the last few decades (from technological and governance perspectives). This volume introduces the global value chain approach as a useful way to analyse competition law and applies it to the operations of food chains and the challenges of their regulation. Together, the chapters not only provide a comprehensive mapping of a vast comparative field, but also shed light on the intricacies of the various policies and legal fields in operation. The book offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for competition authorities, companies and academics, and fills a massive gap in the competition policy literature dealing with global value chains and food.

A comprehensive overview of the law required to regulate global food value chains and make them more accountable to society.

Competition law has expanded to more than 100 jurisdictions worldwide with varying degrees of economic, social, and institutional development, raising important questions as to what is the appropriate design of competition law regimes and the interaction between competition law and economic development. This volume, comprising a selection of papers from the 4th BRICS International Competition Conference written by academic and practising economists and lawyers from both developed and developing countries, is distinctive in its focus on a broader view of competition policy in BRICS and developing countries. It examines the role competition, the application of broader public interest and national interest concerns in the analysis and influence on developing country competition authorities' policy-making. The contributors address topics such as: - a broad view of competition policy; - making markets work for the people as a post millennium development goal; - some key issues concerning the further development of China's antimonopoly law; - remedies in BRICS countries; - public interest issues in cross-border mergers; - crafting creative remedies in food markets in South Africa; - what are African competition authorities doing to fight cartels?; - successes and challenges in the fight against cartels; and the economics of antitrust sanctioning.

Provides a new conceptualization of competition law as economic inequality and its interaction with efficiency become of central concern to policy and decision-makers.

This draft report, prepar ...

Competition law has played a key role in the shaping of modern-day global food supply chains that are characterised by massive imbalances of power; an unfair sharing of value, and the continuous struggle to produce cheap food. This puts a huge burden on the environment, and on people's livelihoods through suppressed incomes due to concentrated bargaining power in the food processing and retailing industries. At the heart of the problem is the current antitrust mantra by the EU and the National Competition Authorities across Europe (and most of the world) that is based on mainstream economic and the paradigm of consumer welfare, the idea that 'cheap is good', market as an efficient and mechanic place, and on nature, society and the commons as irrelevant (unless they have a monetary impact on price or on availability of goods). Inspired by Kate Raworth's invitation to rethink economics so that humanity can operate within the Doughnut (respecting the planetary boundaries and strengthening the social foundations), this article looks at the way in which competition law poses an obstacle to the achievement of this goal and what could be done in order to imagine a competition law fit for purpose.

Global competition now shapes economies and societies in ways unimaginable only a few years ago, and competition (or 'antitrust') law is a key component of the legal framework for global competition. These laws are intended to protect competition from distortion and restraint, and on the national level they reflect the relationships between markets, their participants, and those affected by them. The current legal framework for the global economy is provided, however, by national laws and institutions. This means that those few governments that have sufficient 'power' to apply their laws to conduct outside their own territory provide the norms of global competition. This has long meant that the US (and, more recently, the EU) structure global competition, but China and other countries are increasingly using their economic and political leverage to apply their own competition laws to global markets. The result is increasing uncertainty, costs, and conflicts that burden global economic development. This book examines competition law on the global level and reveals its often complex and little-understood dynamics. It focuses on the interactions between national and international legal regimes that are central to these dynamics and a key to understanding them. Part I examines the evolution of the current global system, the factors that have shaped it, how it operates today, and recent efforts to alter that system-e.g., by including competition law in the WTO. Part II focuses on national competition law systems, revealing how national laws and experiences shape global competition law dynamics and how global factors, in turn, shape national laws and experiences. It examines the central roles of US and European law and experience, and it also pays close attention to countries such as China that are playing increasingly important roles in the global competition law arena. Part III analyzes current strategies for improving the legal framework for global competition and identifies the factors that may contribute to a system that more effectively supports global economic and political development. This analysis also suggests a pathway for moving toward that goal.

Throughout the world, the rule against price fixing is competition law's most important and least controversial prohibition. Yet there is far less consensus than meets the eye on what constitutes price fixing, and prevalent understandings conflict with the teachings of oligopoly theory that supposedly underlie modern competition policy. Competition Policy and Price Fixing provides the needed analytical foundation. It offers a fresh, in-depth exploration of competition law's horizontal agreement requirement, presents a systematic analysis of how best to address the problem of coordinated oligopolistic price elevation, and compares the resulting direct approach to the orthodox prohibition. In doing so, Louis Kaplow elaborates the relevant benefits and costs of potential solutions, investigates how coordinated price elevation is best detected in light of the error costs associated with different types of proof, and examines appropriate sanctions. Existing literature devotes remarkably little attention to these key subjects and instead concerns itself with limiting penalties to certain sorts of interfirm communications. Challenging conventional wisdom, Kaplow shows how this circumscribed view is less well grounded in the statutes, principles, and precedents of competition law than is a more direct, functional proscription. More important, by comparison to the communications-based prohibition, he explains how the direct approach targets situations that involve both greater social harm and less risk of chilling desirable behavior--and is also easier to apply.

Short food supply chains (SFSCs) rely primarily on local production and processing practices for the provision of food and are, in principle, more sustainable in social, economic and environmental terms than supply chains where production and consumption are widely separated. This book reviews and assesses recent initiatives on this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. In theoretical terms it draws on and advances two key concepts, namely, place (particularly embeddedness in local economic networks and communities) and governance (particularly in addressing sustainability concerns in an inclusive and socially just manner). Empirically, the book examines a diverse set of SFSCs such as small-scale entrepreneurship, farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture and grassroots and solidarity networks. The main examples discussed are from Europe and North America, but the issues are applicable in a global context. The book is of interest to advanced students, researchers and professionals in food studies, sociology, geography, planning, politics and environmental studies.