Law Commons^™

Anti-Competitive Agreements: The Meaning Of “Agreement”, George A. Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The trend towards convergence of substantive antitrust doctrine means that most jurisdictions now condemn agreements among competitors that fix prices. But that same convergence means that those same jurisdictions must wrestle with the problem of how to establish the existence of an agreement, especially in an oligopolistic industry where high prices could, at least in theory, be the result simply of oligopolistic interdependence. Do we condemn such interdependence? Do we ignore it and require an explicit agreement? Or is there some middle ground? This chapter explores how the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, the EU, have approached the problem …

A Tale Of Two Cities: From Davids Holdings To Metcash, George A. Hay, E. Jane Murdoch

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1994, the Full Federal Court upheld the decision of the trial judge to prevent the acquisition of QIW by Davids, on the grounds that, Davids would become the only supplier of groceries to independent retailers in the geographic market. While the independent retailers faced significant competition in the downstream (retail) business from the integrated retail chains, the Court found that such competition would not be sufficient to prevent the exercise of monopoly power in the upstream (wholesale) business.

In 2011, the Full Federal Court upheld the decision of the trial judge not to prevent the acquisition by Metcash of …