Modelling Public and Private Enforcement

Abstract

Achieving a workable, hybrid model of competition law enforcement that is sensitive to both instrumental and non-instrumental ends and which commands broad, cross-jurisdictional support always struck me as a tall order. For one thing, it required a keen understanding of the nature of competition law wrongs, which sit awkwardly at the turnstile between public and private law. The enforcement processes of competition law have also evolved in very different social and historical contexts, the United States being an environment in which regulatory agencies have historically been regarded with scepticism (if not downright distrust) and Europe being a centralised bureaucracy in which they have tended to be regarded as the paradigm. Most challengingly of all, the project required a theory of ‘holism’ capable of explaining how it is possible to reconcile complex moral, economic and social objectives within a singular enforcement system, or (more accurately) within a linked network of distinct law enforcement systems.