Antitrust Enforcement Regimes: Fundamental Differences

Since China has modeled its antitrust regime on that of the EU, there are essentially two antitrust regime types: the U.S. and the EU. This chapter is a brief comparative study of the two regimes. I focus on three categories in which fundamental differences are observed: enforcement, legal standards, and procedure. Within each of the three categories, I narrow the focus to a specific illustrative feature. With respect to enforcement, the EU imposes gain-based penalties while the U.S. imposes harm-based penalties. In predation law, the U.S. has a marginal cost standard and the EU has an average cost standard. With respect to procedure, the U.S. is a common law system, while the EU’s procedure is closer to the civil law system in its allocation of power between the courts and the enforcement agency. These differences have profound implications for the welfare consequences of global antitrust enforcement