COMPARING ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE
Among the many important changes wrought by Regulation 1/2003 are the decentralization of responsibility for enforcing EU competition law from Brussels to Member States and the creation of the European Competition Network to encourage coordination and information-sharing among the 26 competition authorities in the EU. This article contrasts Europe's new system of competition enforcement under Regulation 1/2003 with that of the United States. I focus upon two of the more significant features of the U.S. system: the dual legislative and enforcement authority of the States and the Federal Government, and private enforcement. The Commission is presently evaluating measures to facilitate private enforcement and is set to release a Green Paper on that topic later this year. I highlight a few characteristics that have made private enforcement such a significant component of the U.S. antitrust regime, in some ways and at some times providing too much incentive for plaintiffs, at the expense of neutral or procompetitive business activity.
* Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Visiting Senior Lecturer and Charles J. Merriam Scholar, University of Chicago Law School; and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law, George Mason University. The author thanks Charles Stark for his helpful comments on an earlier draft. Copyright 2005 by Douglas H. Ginsburg.