Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> Legal Theory Blog

Academic

: Legal Theory Blog

Del Mar on Joint Action in Philosophy & Competition Law

By Lawrence Solum

Maksymilian T. Del Mar (Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne) has posted Joint Action in Competition Law and Social Philosophy on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This paper considers whether, and if so how, the modelling of joint action in social philosophy ? principally in the work of Margaret Gilbert and Michael Bratman ? might assist in understanding and applying the concept of concerted practices in European competition law. More specifically, the paper focuses in on a well-known difficulty in the application of that concept, namely, distinguishing between concerted practice and rational or intelligent adaptation in oligopolistic markets. The paper argues that although Bratman?s model of joint action is more socio-psychologically plausible, its softer character also makes it less useful than Gilbert?s in our understanding of the legal concept of concerted practice and in dealing with the above difficulty. The paper proceeds in three parts: first, a discussion of the concept of concerted practices in European competition law; second, a discussion of Gilbert and Bratman?s models of joint action (including an assessment of their ability to provide an evidentiary target and an evidentiary platform for concerted practices); and third, reflections on the relationship between the treatment of joint action in social philosophy and the understanding and application of the concept of concerted practices in competition law.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on August 24, 2010 (boomark / email).