Competition Law and Development Policy: Subordination, Self-Sufficiency or Integration?

International competition lawyers often refer (with some pride) to the exponential growth of the number of jurisdictions in the world that have adopted antitrust enforcement regimes since the early 1990s. Namely, over 100 national jurisdictions now have some competition law mechanism and in addition, quite a few regional integration regimes contain competition provisions. Since industrialised countries have been covered by the more established and long-standing antitrust regimes in the US and the EU, much of that growth is due to the adoption of competition laws by transition and developing economies. Some of those jurisdictions have adopted or strengthened their competition enforcement regimes of their own initiative. However, more often, such a regime is implemented at the instigation or encouragement of international donors and development bodies, such as the World Bank, the IMF, as well as the EU. The volume examined the future of competition law in achieving development objectives in third world countries. It was thus of interdisciplinary character and included a contribution from William Kovacic, one of the most eminent US competition law scholars.