Talk:Antitrust

Blue Sky Laws

I have removed this empty header from the article for now, as Blue Sky laws are generally focused on preventinf securities fraud, rather than serving any purpose which particularly serves the antitrust regime. They should really be the subject of their own article, in any event. Brian Dean Abramson 11:31, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, rather silly laxness on my account. I'm actually in the middle of constructing courses on both antitrust and securities, and apparently was not paying too much attention to what I was doing when I stuck the headers in. You're absolutely right, it doesn't belong here at all. I've changed it so that it simply refers to state antitrust laws. Tony Cole 08:45, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Some general suggestions

I am new to CZ, and I have no law qualifications, but I am an economist, and the author of a book on UK and European Union Competition Policy. And I have some suggestions.

My first suggestion is about the title. Antitrust is not a familiar term except to US readers, so I suggest either altering the title to Competition Policy or transfering the non-US material to a separate article. Which would you prefer?

My second suggestion is about tailoring the content to the needs of the likely readership. My guess is that the the readership will consist of:

• businessmen,
• legislators (and those who brief them,
• practitioners of competition law, and,
• economics students.

I suggest that none of those will be much interest in the ancient history of antitrust, but that most of them would appreciate more on its rationale - particularly rather more explanation of its economic basis and its limitations. What do you think?

My third suggestion is the addition of some brief notes on the business practices that are affected by antitrust (mergers, entry barriers, predatory pricing etc) they could be part of the article or separate article(s) linked to the main artice. Which do you think would be the better?

That's all for now. I feel that I should await your reactions to these suggestions before doing any editing.

Nick Gardner 00:55, 11 September 2007 (CDT) r

No quarrel with a different name. Being more of a legal academic, I find the history of the law to be fascinating, but I wouldn't mind relegating it to a "history of" article. Cheers! Brian Dean Abramson 18:19, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Antitrust is one of those topics where the history is essential to understanding what is the purpose of the law. The main goal was not efficiency but to end corruption (the use ofeconomic power to achieve monopoly). Economists unaware of Standard Oil and all that will insert what they think the most efficient law should be. I wrote some of the Wikipedia history and will insert similar coverage here.Richard Jensen 17:45, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

I have now made a start upon an article entitled competition policy and I now suggest that in due course this article could deal with the questions of economic rationale and of the principles underlying the treatment of various business practices by links to that article. May I suggest, however, that this article would benefit from some references to the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts and from something further about the United States' treatment of mergers and anticompetitive practices? As an outsider I should be reluctant to do any drafting along those lines, but if no-one else wants to tackle it, I may try. Nick Gardner 06:17, 4 November 2007 (CST)

It would also seem sensible to replace the "theoretical groundings" paragraph with a paragraph containing a link to the article on competition policy, a reference to the importance of its historical development and a link to a new article on the history of antitrust etc (to which some of the existing text could then be transferred). Nick Gardner 05:36, 5 November 2007 (CST)