Geographical expansion and increase in significance of competition law

Competition law has come to receive phenomenal attention in recent years. The field has become incredibly vast and it has come to experience a geographical expansion – in a relatively short period of time – not seen in the case of any other branch of law. Competition law is no longer an exclusive feature of the statute book of countries in the developed world: a large number of developing countries have come to adopt some form of competition law domestically and in an even larger number competition law currently ranks very high on the national agenda. Many of these countries are at an extremely early stage of economic development; some of them have a notably limited experience with the concept or mechanism of a free market economy; and there are those in which even as recently as five years ago the adoption of a competition law was simply unthinkable, yet it has become a reality. Such developments are highly significant and have impacted – in most cases positively – on international trade, the way countries regulate their domestic markets, and on how firms behave and operate globally.

In parallel with the phenomenal increase in significance and geographic scope of competition law however, the question of what is competition law all about has mushroomed.