Eh? Have you read the EC summary about what Intel were doing?They were paying manufacturers to not buy from a competitor. When you are 'in a dominant position on a market' that is illegal.
Such payments are 'abusive according to settled case-law of the Community Courts unless the dominant company can put forward specific reasons to justify their application in the individual case'.
(Quotes from the EC summary).
(Such payments are 'abusive according to settled case-law of the Community Courts unless the dominant company can put forward specific reasons to justify their application in the individual case'.
(Quotes from the EC summary).
Bee Nice |-|,
Thu 14 May 2009, 14:58,
archived)
Laws designed to enforce competition (such as our UK competition commision) are ridiculous, and do no such thing.It's all about the creation of knowledge. People have to be allowed to experiment with business practices, even ones which appear to be unreasonable. If they are unreasonable, and the unfairness isn't enforced (by law, I mean), then they will collapse in due course. Meanwhile, they might turn out not to be unreasonable after all. Having an agency arbitrarily declare, for instance, "you have to be two companies now instead of one, and compete with yourself, because you're too big" is stupid. The law doesn't know what's best. The law doesn't conduct the experiments to find out what's best. Sometimes one big company is in fact best - or not - and we have to find out, by allowing it.
(,
Thu 14 May 2009, 15:36,
archived)
Thankfully, these experiments have already been done, many many years ago.I mean, the problem was recognised in Roman times, at least; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law#Roman_legislation.
There's a huge amount of history of this issue. (I'm not a historian and I haven't done more than skim it, but it seems pretty obvious to me).
If you insist that these previous experiments are inconclusive, that's your choice; I would disagree.
(There's a huge amount of history of this issue. (I'm not a historian and I haven't done more than skim it, but it seems pretty obvious to me).
If you insist that these previous experiments are inconclusive, that's your choice; I would disagree.
Bee Nice |-|,
Thu 14 May 2009, 15:49,
archived)
You appear to be arguing for the results of the experiments to be set in stone.Yes, this is a cheeky reference to something you said earlier, designed to be slightly unsettling.
I note that "stopping supply ships" ought to be a crime anyway, never mind any competition laws; you can't stop somebody else's ship. You can, however, buy all their grain and make it scarce, if you want to; more fool you. In Roman times such behaviour might have been more of a problem as it would lead to nobody having any bread, rather than bread costing slightly more until the attempted monopoly collapses (due to diversity).
I might perhaps be drawn to support a law against somebody literally buying all the grain that exists in the world. Particularly if they then burn it rather than selling it. That would be 1) impossible and 2) an odd thing to do.
Generally speaking I think that laws like this are an attempt to maintain homeostasis in the face of a perceived wrong which isn't actually wrong, just alarming. I see the 1557 Statute of Anne (which kicked off copyright) in the same light.
(,
Thu 14 May 2009, 16:05,
archived)
I note that "stopping supply ships" ought to be a crime anyway, never mind any competition laws; you can't stop somebody else's ship. You can, however, buy all their grain and make it scarce, if you want to; more fool you. In Roman times such behaviour might have been more of a problem as it would lead to nobody having any bread, rather than bread costing slightly more until the attempted monopoly collapses (due to diversity).
I might perhaps be drawn to support a law against somebody literally buying all the grain that exists in the world. Particularly if they then burn it rather than selling it. That would be 1) impossible and 2) an odd thing to do.
Generally speaking I think that laws like this are an attempt to maintain homeostasis in the face of a perceived wrong which isn't actually wrong, just alarming. I see the 1557 Statute of Anne (which kicked off copyright) in the same light.