World trade Organization

The field of competition (antitrust) policy embodies many of the dilemmas that are at the heart of current debates on international cooperation and inter-jurisdictional competition in economic regulation generally. These dilemmas are illustrated in vivid fashion in the Transatlantic context, in which we see both: (i) the existence and regular use of formal cooperation arrangements for the enforcement of competition law that have been in place for a number of years; and (ii) periodic conflicts that nonetheless arise in the enforcement stances taken by the US and the EC in major transnational antitrust cases, which arguably call for deeper forms of co-operation and coordination. At the same time, calls for substantive harmonization of competition law and enforcement approaches have been widely rejected, in part on the ground that this would deprive citizens of the benefits of inter-jurisdictional competition in the antitrust sphere. The case for a deepening of current cooperation arrangements is considered in this light. The significance of EC-US cooperation and coordination is also considered in its wider global context