Competitive Analysis and Business Cycles - Competition

Touro University International

Course: Competitive Analysis and Business Cycles (BUS 305)

Assignment Title:   Competition

Assignment: Module Three Case Management File

Touro Professor: Dr. Stuart Rosenberg

U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Role in Antitrust Enforcement:   Is it Enough?
Protecting economic freedom and opportunity by promotion competition in the marketplace is the goal of antitrust laws and the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Antitrust Division’s role in antitrust enforcement.   “Competition in a free market benefits American consumers through lower prices, better quality and greater choice. Competition provides businesses the opportunity to compete on price and quality, in an open market and on a level playing field, unhampered by anticompetitive restraints. Competition also tests and hardens American companies at home, the better to succeed abroad” (U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division, Overview, 2008).
An answer to this module’s query, “Is DOJ’s role in antitrust enforcement enough?”   The answer would depend on who you ask.   In my opinion, I believe they are providing satisfactory enforcement coupled with the various States’ Antitrust enforcement agencies.   Why?   For one, our economy is extremely competitive overseas and, secondly because, the DOJ is actively pursuing and adjudicating federal cases as it always has.
When one briefly reviews the history of the DOJ’s antitrust enforcement, one recognizes three Congressional Acts guide the Antitrust Division’s proceedings.   The first was the Sherman Act endorsed in July 1890, tailored to outlaw “all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain interstate trade.   This includes agreements among competitors to fix prices, rig bids and allocate consumers” (“’Lectric Law Library, Antitrust Enforcement & the Consumer, 2008).
The second piece of legislation, the Clayton Act, is a civil statute prohibiting mergers or acquisitions likely to lessen competition.   “Under the Act, the government...