Ten Things I (Really) Like About Gerber’s ‘Global Competition’

Ten Things I (Really) Like About Gerber’s ‘Global Competition’ by Spencer Wallers

ABSTRACT: David Gerber’s scholarship has been an inspiration and a major contribution to international competition policy. His earlier book Law and Competition in Twentieth Century Europe: Protecting Prometheus made a compelling case that there is a European competition law that stands apart from US antitrust law and policy. He documented how EU competition law and its national analogues share common roots going back to prior to World War II as a true pan-European body of law with indigenous roots and a common frame of reference. Gerber now expands his field of inquiry to global competition policy in Global Competition: Law, Markets and Globalization. He analyzes the history and current state of national and international solutions to international competition law and sets forth a path forward where past efforts have failed. The key to understanding Gerber’s arguments is to appreciate his view that the past efforts did not fail, or at least did not fail as to the substance of the idea that global markets require global solutions to prevent anticompetitive conduct on a global scale. He provides one of the best and most nuanced accounts of the attempts in the 20th century to develop international competition law and the forces outside of the competition arena that prevented its adoption. In this essay, I want to highlight a very personal “top ten” list of the features that make Gerber’s Global Competition such a special and lasting contribution.