I recently received an entry in my Hungarian blog by the President of STOP CARTEL, Dr. George Cosmopoulos. Most news are about Greece yet, but I am curious how this interesting project will develop. The attitude is very harsh, but cartels are not funny things either.
The site has an antitrust TV, that currently broadcasts/podcasts/webcasts the documentary Fair Fight in the Marketplace. I think the movie is a really good documentary and explains basic problems with some typical competition law infringements.
The page has some entries, calling antitrust infringements crimes. Well I could agree with calling cartels a crime, but I think one should take a more sophisticated approach to abuse cases. They are not as clear cut as price fixing cartels.
Nevertheless the project is more than welcome. It just came to my mind that sometimes “Greenpeace like organisations” are needed to draw attention on practices that damage the society.
25 March, 2008 at 7:01 pm |
Sites that would collect now dispersed information about international cartels and create a discussion forum, could certainly help consumer activists rally against cartels. And they could help antitrust scholars in their research. Naturally comes the idea that such websites could collect studies dealing with cartel harm and cartel theory as well.
However, similar initiatives have to fight hard against felling victim to zealotry and to over-simplification while maintaining their initial momentum. An efficient organisation driven by devoted experts and financial support are also needed for survival.
Future will tell whether Stop Cartel will succeed, but if private enforcement in Europe will spread, according to more or less uniform rules, then such consumer activist sites, probably attached to law firms, will certainly have a market niche.