Unilateral Practices, Antitrust Enforcement and Commitments
Michele Polo and
Patrick Rey
No 17140, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
This paper analyses the impact of commitments on antitrust enforcement. These tools, introduced in Europe by the Modernization reform of 2003, are now used intensively by the European Commission and by National Competition Agencies. We consider a setting where a firm can adopt a practice that is either pro- or anti-competitive; the firm knows the nature of the practice whereas the enforcer has only prior beliefs about it. If the firm adopts the practice, the enforcer then decides whether to open a case. When commitments are available, the firm can offer a commitment whenever a case is opened; the enforcer then decides whether to accept it or run a costly investigation that may or may not bring supporting evidence. We show that introducing commitments weakens enforcement when the practice is likely to be anti-competitive. The impact of commitments is however more nuanced when the practice is less likely to be anti-competitive.
Keywords: Antitrust enforcement; Commitment; Remedies; Deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 K42 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17140 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Working Paper: Unilateral Practices, Antitrust Enforcement and Commitments (2024) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17140
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17140
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().