Significant economic and legal aspects in the protection of competition in the EU and the USA

The purpose of the present thesis is to analyse the relationship between competition law and economics on the example of the USA and the EU. In the first chapter is mentioned the context that led to the issuance of antitrust laws in the USA, the EU and other countries, as well as the most significant economic theories which had a major influence on the application of competition law. This is followed by the description of the institutional framework of competition law in the USA and the EU, their respective primary sources of law, including non-legislative documents. The second chapter analyses the most significant anticompetitive conducts for both antitrust areas (i.e. anticompetitive agreements and unilateral conducts), with a special attention to the most harmful anticompetitive conducts (e.g. horizontal price fixing) and to relatively new and dynamically developing areas of antitrust law (e.g. refusal to deal related to intellectual property). Each selected conduct is introduced by the description of potential anticompetitive effects of the conduct and it is followed by relevant significant American and European precedents. The last sub-chapters analyse non-legislative documents issued by the FTC, DoJ and EC which enable to educe their current general approach to mergers.