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Consumer Sovereignty: A Unified Theory Of Antitrust And Consumer Protection Law, Neil W. Averitt, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is about the relationship between antitrust and consumer protection law. Its purpose is to define each area of law, to delineate the boundary between them, to show how they interact with each other, and to show how they ultimately support one another as the two component parts of an overarching unity: effective consumer choice (also called consumer sovereignty).

Consumer choice only is effective when two fundamental conditions are present. There must be a range of consumer options made possible through competition, and consumers must be able to choose effectively among these options. The antitrust laws are intended to …