Superior Bargaining Power and the Global Food Value Chain: The Wuthering Heights of Holistic Competition Law?

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the role of superior bargaining power in competition law and policy in the agri-food value chain. Conventional approaches to competition law based on a neoclassical price theory perspective tend to neglect or to stay opaque on the role of bargaining power in competition law. However, national competition authorities and national legislators seem to be less biased by specific theoretical approaches and have increasingly engaged with the application of the concept of bargaining power in competition law. In this paper we discuss both positions and set a general theoretical framework, the global value chain approach, to better understand the interactions between suppliers and retailers in the food sector. Finally, we observe the framing of new tools of competition law intervention at national level, in order to deal with situations of superior bargaining power in specific settings related to the food value chain.