Business Property and Antitrust Law

 What you learned about the law as it relates to preventing anticompetitive measures

Antitrust laws are meant to ensure fair competition among companies. This was set up by the federal government in a bid to also protect consumers who would in turn benefit through lower prices of commodities, promote innovation and enhance diverse production that comes with competition. Behaviors that work against completion are highly prohibited as they result in unfair advantages for specific companies at the expense of others. Such behaviors include monopolization, price-fixing, and collusive bidding, among others. If all these are regulated, it is possible for companies to produce quality products at low prices, which is to the advantage of the consumer. These laws are used by the federal government as means of achieving its goal of safeguarding welfare of the public (William & Ridge, 2001).
Examples that help demonstrate the concepts

The antitrust law is simply a way of controlling unfair competition among businesses. Unlawful practices that perpetuate unfair competition are the major concern of this law as it aims at controlling them. These behaviors as mentioned above come as signed agreements between companies that are in a competition, mergers, group boycotts, monopolization by companies and local arrangements between companies and the consumers. Price-fixing is against the antitrust law. This happens when one or more companies fix the price of their produce against the workings of a free market. This is a violation of free market as it restrains market (Bradley, 2005).

Advice you would give to business managers about how to prevent anticompetitive behavior

For a business manager to prevent anti-competitive behavior, they must be well versed with the antitrust law. They should as well communicate this to their employees and if possible trainings on antitrust compliance be effected.  All employees should be advised to comply with policies of the company and all the US laws dealing with regulation of unlawful anticompetitive behaviors. Information sharing by employees of different companies should be highly discouraged unless they are sure about the context and nature of information.

Business managers must also avoid any form of anti-competitive scheme in their company or between them and other companies. Practices such as trying arrangements, collusive bidding and price-fixing should be totally avoided. After all if a few companies monopolize the market, they too will be affected in the long run since the market will stagnate. They should be keen to ensure that practices such as innocent exchange of compensation data do not hold them liable for violating antitrust laws. Business managers therefore must play a collective responsibility together with their employees (Reynolds, 1994).

In conclusion, the US is a capitalistic nation and competition in the market is ever present. The antitrust laws therefore play an important role in regulating competition and ensuring equal business opportunities for all companies.

References

Bradley, C. N. (2005). Trade meetings and the antitrust laws: What business competitors need to

know about antitrust liability. FDCC Quarterly, 55(2), 193-206. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/201221138?accountid=45049;

Reynolds, S. P. (1994). Alert: Exchanging compensation data may violate antitrust laws.

Compensation and Benefits Review, 26(5), 8-8. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/213663266?accountid=45049;

 William, J. K., & Ridge, J. (2001). United states: Summary of US antitrust laws. International

Financial Law Review, , 159-164. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/233192932?accountid=45049;