Competition policy in Britain: Retrospect and prospect

Abstract

The term 'competition policy' might suggest a high degree of coherence of philosophy and of instruments for implementation, worked out and developed according to some carefully systematic plan. I must at once disclaim any intention on my part to give the impression that this is so. In fact UK competition policy has grown, if not exactly like Topsy, then at least unevenly in response to the political preoccupations of the day and in the light of changing economic thought and experience. What began as a relatively simple attempt to control monopolies and cartels in 1948, I through enquiry by the Monopolies Commission followed by Government decision, developed by hiving off cartels to be examined instead by a judicial process as from 1956, 2 and by starting a process of controlling mergers and take-over bids in 1965. 3 Then came the creation of the Office of Fair Trading as the principal initiating body in 1973, 4 the extension of the cartel law from goods to services in 1976: and finally some supplementary powers to investigate more speedily the anticompetitive behaviour of individual firms by the Competition Act 1980. This process of growth has left behind it a varied mixture of procedures and practices whose justification lies in the fact that they seem to work rather than in any underlying unity of approach. And there is a further justification for this untidy and seemingly unplanned construction of one piece of legislation upon another because over the years the changing economic scene combined with actual experience of existing procedures suggested that improvements and amendments were needed rather than wholesale replacement. Of course, it may be that those of us closely involved with competition policy are always liable to be too much aware of the diversity of approaches in different countries and, within any one country, of different approaches at different times, to place a great deal of emphasis on the need for philosophical consistency. We are also often the object of well argued special pleading to the effect that, whatever the general virtues of promoting competition, those virtues should not apply in these or those circumstances or at this or that time. In looking back, and in looking forward, I shall be developing a number of different lines of thought. One is that there is some semblance of a common theme in UK competition policy; and there are more common elements in the experience of different countries than might appear at first sight. Another thought is that there are good reasons for