This paper analyses the main antitrust decisions in the agribusiness sector in Europe. First, legislation and economic principles are recalled. Then for input suppliers, farmers, manufacturers, and retailers, we give a brief presentation of the market structure and discuss the main competition concerns according to the most recent antitrust decisions. Farmers are the weakest link of the entire chain, given the degree of concentration in the upstream and downstream industries in Europe. The use of the concept of buying power could be developed by competition authorities to balance power along the agro-food chain.
Published in European Review of Agricultural Economics, 29(3), August 2002, pp. 373-397.
Published by the Italian Competition Authority in its series Temi e problemi n. 10
In this paper we compare the access to an essential facility in two different property rights regimes. In one of them, the owner of the facility has a full private property right. In the other, access is regulated according to the efficient component pricing rule. Proponents of the second regime claim that this rule is efficient, for it forecloses the complementary market only to inefficient producers. We prove that the two legal frameworks are equivalent if we do not consider the possibility of the transfer of the property right and that if this is allowed the efficient component pricing rule might exclude efficient suppliers.
