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Current Issues in Competition Law: Vol I eBook

Context and Interpretation

Editor

,

ISBN

9781760023508

Format

eBook

Publication date

08/11/2021

Page extent

332

AUD $180.00 gst included

Over the past 30 years, the Australian statutory regime regulating competition and restrictive trade practices has been the subject of much, significant reform. The evolution has been driven by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. In this respect, debates — some familiar, others more novel — continue. These debates are occurring in the profession, the academy, and even in the media and the broader community. After all, the harms which Australian competition law seeks to prevent, and redress, have significant, direct impacts across society, from sophisticated multinationals to the everyday consumer. Meanwhile, the regulator in Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is notoriously active in promoting and enforcing (including, testing the limits of) the prohibitions on restrictive trade practices.

This volume of the collection, Current Issues in Competition Law, covers various topics of considerable importance and concern. The focus is on the Australian statutory topography and the collection is avowedly concerned with debates and issues of contemporary importance. The volume is divided into three parts. The first considers the historical and theoretical background underpinning Australia’s competition law; the second addresses questions of statutory interpretation common throughout, and specific to, this jurisprudence; and, the third examines the application of this law to new and emerging markets. The chapters provide perspectives from the judiciary, the regulator, the practising profession, and the academy, including a foreword by the Honourable Chief Justice Allsop AO.

This volume, along with the companion volume, are essential reading for those called upon to determine competition matters, lawyers practising in competition law, and those teaching and researching the subject.

This collection was generously supported by the Ross Parsons Centre, The University of Sydney Law School.

“This anthology is an impressive collection of the leading multidisciplinary voices on modern Australian competition law: a current Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia; Chair and Chief Economist of the federal regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; economists, private legal practitioners, and academics in law, business, and economics … Each paper is a discrete and valuable analysis. Together, they engage in a lively, detailed, and thoughtful debate … This collection is an invaluable and essential tool for practitioners, generalists and specialists, regulators, jurists, students of the law, and members of the public, for whom these laws exist to benefit.”

From the Foreword by The Honourable James Allsop AO

Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia

July 2021

Foreword
Chief Justice Allsop
Introduction
Michael Gvozdeonvic and Stephen Puttick

Part I Background, History, and Theory
Chapter 1. The Courts in Competition Law
Hon Robert French AC
Chapter 2. The Continuing Journey to Protect Competition: The ACCC’s Perspectives on Part IV
Rod Sims and Graeme Woodbridge
Chapter 3. An Economic Perspective on Part IV
Jill Walker
Chapter 4. Competition Law at the Limit of Common Law and Statute
Stephen Puttick

Part II Statutory Interpretation in Competition Law
Chapter 5. Statutory Interpretation from Visy to Today
Perry Herzfeld SC
Chapter 6. A Likely Story: Future Counterfactuals in Competition Law
Ruth C A Higgins SC
Chapter 7. Defining and Determining a ‘Substantial Lessening of Competition’
Justice Mark Moshinsky
Chapter 8. What is the ‘Market’?
Rhonda L Smith and Arlen Duke

Part III Emerging Markets
Chapter 9. Economic Theory, Competition Regulation, and Digital Markets
Kathryn McMahon
Chapter 10. Digital Platform Acquisitions: Anti-Competitive Mergers or Misuses of Market Power
Dave Poddar, Michael Gvozdenovic, and Joshua Sinn
Chapter 11. Recent Developments in ACCC Review of Media Mergers
Felicity McMahon and Jacqueline Downes
Chapter 12. Emerging Issues in Mergers in Infrastructure Markets
Belinda Harvey and Stephanie Phan

This collection is a must-read for competition and regulatory practitioners. Prior to formally reviewing the collection for this journal, I had scoured the pages of several chapters across both volumes for my own practical purposes. Chapters will no doubt end up on essential reading lists for competition law electives. Chief Justice Allsop suggests in the foreword to the volume that competition law exists to benefit all members of the public – I commend the collection to all. Read full review…

Nicholas Felstead, Lawyer, Melbourne (2023) 51 ABLR 110

[T]his collection provides valuable insight and stimulation for the development of thinking in the field. Read full review…

Michael Hodge KC, BarNews, Summer 2022

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