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Since the last edition of this book, the law on monopolies and abuse of dominance has undergone evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes. Many of the sectors that regulators focused on in the past few years (most notably the digital economy, telecommunications and energy) unsurprisingly continue to be the subject of regulatory and judicial scrutiny. From the vantage point of 2014, the growing internationalisation of regulators’ antitrust priorities and focus has continued, with intensifying enforcement in China and India and emerging economies. Books such as The Dominance & Monopolies Review make common trends both more apparent and capable of being comparatively analysed.
As some of the more significant abuse cases in the past year underline, the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as authorities such as those in India and China, have a tendency to focus on similar issues and even the same cases. The Google case is one example; the issue of standard essential patents (SEPs) is another. This should be no surprise in an increasingly global and interdependent economy, in particular in worldwide markets for new technology, and where antitrust authorities exchange information and cooperate in the International Competition Network and organisations such as the OECD.
