Rediscovering the Spirit of Competition: On the Normative Value of the Competitive Process

"The argument of this paper is that competition should be perceived as a sui generis right. The paper develops this argument from three perspectives: substantive, methodological and comparative. On the

substantive side it explains why competition should be conceptually treated as the central goal of antitrust policy and investigates potential situations where protection of competition conflicts with consumer welfare.

The paper makes a case for a methodological “unbundling” of those closely connected economic values. By exploring the essence of competition and its importance for the market, the paper explains how the idea of competition transforms from a means to an end, or rather how by being a legally defined means it procedurally becomes an end. It develops its theoretical argument primarily in the European jurisdictional ambit, acknowledging that its conceptual implications can be relevant for other jurisdictions as well."