The Future of Competition Policy: A World View

In North America, Canada and the United States; in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eire, Finland, France, Western Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom; in Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico; in the Far East, India, Japan, Pakistan; elsewhere, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa.

EEC, ECSC, EFTA, GATT, UNCTAD.

See Sichel Werner , The Threat to Market Socialism: The Case of Yugoslavia, Antitrust Bulletin, Summer 1971, pp. 389 ff.

Listed in the order in which they first adopted laws that expressed competition policy, these countries are: Mexico, Argentina, Union of South Africa, New Zealand, Israel, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, India, Pakistan.

In UNCTAD, where such countries have a large majority, there has been work on restrictive business practices. It has been led,: However, by the quasi-Westernized quasi-developed countries that already have domestic competition policies, and it has been concerned almost wholly with restrictive impacts upon developing countries from the activities of business enterprises of the developed countries. Whatever problems may be created by domestic restrictions in developing countries have not resulted in efforts by UNCTAD to formulate and advocate domestic competition policies.

The traditional preference for a highly competitive economy in the United States has resulted in strong presumptions against restrictive solutions fori particular problems. This attitude is illustrated by the following excerpts from a speech in New York on January 23, 1974, by Kauper Thomas E. , Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division: “… from time to time it is urged that competitors be permitted to form combinations and cartels, add that the antitrust laws must be suspended in order to accomplish some current overriding social, political, or economic goal… . we have continually asked for detailed explanations of why such special treatment is necessary. More often than not—as in the case of the perennial assertion that the antitrust laws are a barrier to American businessmen seeking to expand exports—these demands for proof have generated little or nothing in response … others are beginning to agree with us that those who seek to replace or suspend the operation of free market forces have a heavy burden of justification. In foreign commerce, sweeping proposals to exempt export trade from the antitrust laws were rejected in the Administration's trade bill and by Congress. The El Paso forgiveness bill, designed to allow El Paso Natural Gas to keep an unlawfully acquired pipeline, died in committee and was not reintroduced when the Supreme Court rejected El Paso's fifth appeal. In another area—application of the antitrust laws to restrictive patent licensing practices—the Administration decided not to include any provisions immunizing various forms of arrangements from antitrust attack in the Patent Reform Bill it introduced in September. The reason, as set; forth in the Presidential Message accompanying the bill, saw that ‘after much study (the Executive Branch) concluded that there is no clearly demonstrated need or justification far introduction of any patent licensing proposals at this time.’ The burden, in short, is on the proponents, and it has not been met.”

A proposal for international action against restrictions on a global basis was part of a draft charter for an International Trade Organization that was tentatively accepted in 1948 by officials of 53 countries but was never ratified, primarily because the United States, principal sponsor of the plan, ceased to support it. A draft convention for control of international cartels was prepared in 1951 by the secretariat for the Council of Europe and was submitted to member governments, but was set aside when attention shifted to the proposals that resulted in the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community. The United Nations Economic and Social Council established in 1951 a committee composed of representatives of ten countries, and in 1953 that committee's report recommended a draft program of action against restrictive business practices similar to that of the draft I.T.O. charter; but the project expired when the United States, which had been its chief advocate, reversed its position. For a brief account of the proposals and of the programs adopted, see Edwards Corwin D. , Control of Cartels and Monopolies, an International Comparison, Oceana, 1967, chapters 14–16.

The resolutions are quoted and details about the group's report are provided in Krishnamurti R. , UNCTAD Group of Experts on Restrictive Business Practices , Journal of World Business, November-December, 1973, pp. 711–719.

Developing countries have used various other means to try to cope with the policies of foreign firms that invest within them and make technical assistance agreements with their enterprises. These means have included regulation of foreign investment, regulation of the terms of licenses for patents and know-how to which foreign firms are parties, and regulation of the transmission of funds across the nation's borders.