ABSTRACT

Reasonable disagreements are pervasive in antitrust, yet the leading antitrust systems function in a broadly effective and consistent manner. How can we explain this paradox? The tentative reply to this question is that the two main antitrust jurisdictions have managed to do so by adopting the features of ‘responsive law’ (RL). Therefore, antitrust institutions could further benefit if they adopt the RL framework to understand and deal with reasonable disagreements.To support this argument, I contend that reasonable disagreements are endogenous in antitrust systems, as they derive from antitrust’s fuzzy mandate, conceptually elastic vocabulary, and rules and standards mode of analysis. In a nutshell, reasonable disagreements are the by-product of two complementary yet antithetical forces of antitrust: openness and integrity. Nonetheless, conventional wisdom has it that such disagreements are temporary indeterminacies that will eventually be eradicated. This view stems from a conceptualization of antitrust as a form of ‘autonomous law’. However, this model of law does not take reasonable disagreements seriously and as a result offers an inadequate modus operandi for dealing with them. The ‘RL’ model, on the contrary, recognizes the endogeneity of reasonable disagreements and the underlying forces that generate them. Instead of attempting to eliminate them, therefore, the RL model suggests that antitrust institutions should seek to tame and exploit them. For this purpose, this model proposes a legal-institutional modus operandi for calibrating the eliciting forces of reasonable disagreements, that is, openness and integrity. The hallmarks of this approach are constructive teleological interpretation, experimentalist network-based enforcement by postbureaucratic enforcers, and courts operating as catalysts.

中文翻译：

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反托拉斯的开放与诚信

摘要

在反托拉斯中普遍存在合理的分歧，而领先的反托拉斯系统却以广泛有效和一致的方式发挥作用。我们如何解释这个悖论？对这个问题的初步答复是，两个主要的反托拉斯法域已经通过采用“响应法”（RL）的特征来做到这一点。因此，如果反托拉斯机构采用RL框架来理解和处理合理的分歧，则可能会进一步受益。规则和标准模式的分析。简而言之，合理的分歧是反托拉斯的两个互补但相反的力量的副产品：开放性和完整性。尽管如此，传统观点认为，这种分歧是暂时的不确定性，最终将被根除。这种观点源于将反托拉斯概念化为“自治法”的一种形式。但是，这种法律模式并没有认真对待合理的分歧，因此提供了不足的作案手法来处理这些分歧。相反，“ RL”模型认识到合理分歧的内生性和产生这些分歧的潜在力量。因此，RL模型不是试图消除它们，而是建议反托拉斯机构应设法驯服和利用它们。为此，该模型提出了一种法律制度的作案手法，用于校准合理分歧（即开放性和完整性）的诱发力。