Understanding market power : a legal perspective

Abstract

US and EU antitrust laws adopt specific conceptions of market power. US antitrust directly targets market power, and develops an economic understanding of the concept centred on a firm’s ability to raise prices above the competitive level and control output. EU competition law, by contrast, considers market power through the filter of the concept of dominant position, and focuses heavily on market shares. US and EU differences translate in divergent requirements for the proof of evidence of market power facts required to establish a violation of antitrust law.