Editing Competition (section)

===Law===
{{Main|Competition law}}
[[File:U.S. Department of Justice headquarters, August 12, 2006.jpg|thumb|right |The [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] building in [[Washington, D.C.]] houses the influential [[United States antitrust law|antitrust]] enforcers of U.S. competition laws.]]
Competition [[law]], known in the [[United States]] as antitrust law, has three main functions:
* First, it prohibits agreements aimed to restrict free trading between business entities and their customers. For example, a [[cartel]] of sports shops who together fix football-jersey prices higher than normal is illegal.<ref>{{Cite court|litigants=JJB Sports PLC v Office of Fair Trading|court=CAT|opinion=1022/1/1/03|date=1 October 2003|url=https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/10221103-jjb-sports-plc}}</ref>
* Second, competition law can ban the existence or abusive behaviour of a firm dominating the market. One case in point could be a software company who through its [[monopoly]] on computer platforms makes consumers use its media player.<ref>In the E.U. side of the saga, see [https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2009-02/cp070063en.pdf Case T-201/04] <br/>{{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220210183724/https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2009-02/cp070063en.pdf |date= 2022-02-10 }} ''Microsoft v. Commission'' Order, [revised] 17 September 2007</ref>
* Third, to preserve competitive markets, the law supervises the [[mergers and acquisitions]] of very large corporations. Competition authorities could for instance require that a large packaging company give plastic bottle [[license]]s to competitors before taking over a major [[Polyethylene terephthalate|PET]] producer.<ref>{{Cite court|litigants=Commission of the European Communities v Tetra Laval BV|court=EU Court of Justice|reporter=European Court Reports|opinion=Case C-12/03 P|date=15 February 2005|url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62003CJ0012}}</ref>

In all three cases, competition law aims to protect the [[consumer welfare|welfare of consumers]] by ensuring that each business must compete for its share of the [[market economy]].{{cn|date=April 2025}}