Antitrust
laws, also referred to as “competition laws”, are statutes developed to protect
consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition
exists in an open-market economy. Competition laws regulate and prohibit several
questionable business activities such as market
allocation/ de facto monopoly whereby companies agree to steer clear of each
other’s identified geographical market or territories; bid rigging whereby conspiring entities manipulate the market with
a view of retaining current market share and price for each entity; and price fixing whereby two or three
entities agree on the same selling price. Competition laws are designed to
maximize consumer welfare by regulating or preventing business activities which
stifle competition. Read more...