WA Resolution: International Competition Law

[Hockeynutville]

International Competition Law
A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Category: Free Trade
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: FlagGlen-Rhodes


Description: REALIZING that anti-competitive practices are restrictive to the international market and inhibit the fair trade of goods,

The World Assembly hereby

LIMITS this resolution to the international market,

HOWEVER reserves the inherent right to openly legislate further on the subjects of competition law and specific market regulation;

GENERALLY DEFINES “collusion” as a public or private agreement which occurs between two or more businesses to divide a market, set prices, limit production, or generally prevent competition;

DEFINES “cartel” as a group of two or more businesses that collude to limit competition within an industry or market;

BANS the formation of cartels and instructs the International Trade Administration (ITA) to determine the existence of a cartel, and restrict existing and future cartels from interacting on an international scale,

DEFINES “price-fixing” as the collusion of two or more business to sell the same product or service at the same price and “bid-rigging” as the collusion of two or more businesses as to which business will submit the winning bid in a competitive bidding process;

BANS price-fixing and bid-rigging and instructs the ITA to monitor and report any suspected actions of price-fixing and bid-rigging to the governments of the nations involved, as well as the general market;

DEFINES “anti-competitive exclusive dealing” as the collusion of two or more businesses to buy or sell products or services only among themselves, if either of the businesses are independent, but contractually owned by the other, and there exists a conspiracy to monopolize or a potential for diminished competition;

DEFINES “group boycott” as the collusion of two or more businesses, in an effort to decrease competition, to refuse to interact with another business until they agree to stop interacting with a targeted business;

BANS anti-competitive exclusive dealing and group boycotting; instructs the ITA to monitor and report anti-competitive exclusive dealing and group boycotting to the governments of the nations involved, as well as the general market;

DEFINES “market division” as the collusion of two or more businesses to allocate shares of the market among themselves, wherein no party will interfere with another in their allocated market;

BANS market division and instructs the ITA to monitor and report any suspected actions of market division to the governments of the nations involved, as well as the general market;

PROTECTS governments from being held financially liable for non-tangible foreign monetary losses that are a result of the dissolution of a business on grounds of the above proscribed practices;

EXTENDS the authority of the ITA to:

INVESTIGATE and approve or deny international business mergers, ensuring that such mergers are not acts of monopolization or may unintentionally prevent competition;

SUGGEST the dissolution of businesses to national governments;

COMPILE annually a list of repeat offenders of anti-competitive practices and distribute it among the general market.

[morlago]

BANS the formation of cartels and instructs the International Trade Administration (ITA) to determine the existence of a cartel, and restrict existing and future cartels from interacting on an international scale,

Against.

[Showa Emperor]

I am against it too.

[Ananke II]

Seems like an ok resolution to me, so I'll break the tie and cast my vote for.

[Sarkozialand]

Hi !

Like every political question, it's a hard question ! The way I understand this resolution makes me say that I'm against. But I'm a newbie and a bad english speaker/reader. So I'll follow our WA delegate, this is democracy after all !

PS: happy first post to me !

[Ananke II]

Welcome Sarkozialand. Don't worry about your English. It's fine and NS is full of non-native english speakers.

Our WA delegate usually vote with the majority of the region, so its' him following you and me most of the time.

[morlago]

But it's a tie so far. I personally hope HNV will vote against.

[Sarkozialand]

Can I ask you both for example, Morlago and Ananke II, why do you consider this resolution as to be voted FOR or AGAINST ?

As for me, I think that banning cartels would be maybe a good thing for the consummer (by reducing prices). But I can't believe that a total freedom in international trading would be really good. But as I said in my previous post I'm not sure to understand the resolution.

Another question : what is exactly the "power" of HNV ?

I mean, does he own several voices and when he'll decide to vote AGAINST (just an example, not my point of view at all ) it's like "+177 vots AGAINST" ? Or his power is to be followed by several voters ?

Thanks

[GreenVerdeVerte]

resolution made sense to me, seems like trustbusting. im just kinda confused as to how this is applied. how is international business covered in NS?

[Ananke II]

Yep, when HockeyNutville cast his vote it'll count as 177 votes (or whatever number of endorsements he's got).

As for why I voted for; well, I didn't really see a reason to vote against. It bans cartels and such in the private market, which I don't really see a downside to and stays out of government run services, which is where I might have a problem with banning monopolies.

Edit: Being delegate HockeyNutville can also approve WA proposals. To hit the WA floor a proposal need 53 delegate approvals, meaning that the delegates help vet the proposal queue (doesn't mean that all the proposal, which hit the floor are good though).

[Hockeynutville]

Vote is deadlocked folks, under a day to go.

[Sarkozialand]

Okay... 5 hours before the vote ends. I can't do more than wait the last moment to vote. I would vote against this resolution.