The Role of Economic Arguments in Decisions Concerning Protection of Competition

Abstract

The paper deals with obvious tendencies of economization of legal decision making under the parole of „more economic approach“. It warns against the danger of a simplified „book-keeper approach“ and preferring short-term economioc goals to the detriment of other social values, such as legal certainty. The economization of legal decision does not put an end to uncertainty and instead sometimes can incur other uncertainty. Modernization and economization of competition law offers more space for „ad hoc“ political opportunism. Similarly, adoration of the short-term consumer welfare can cause long-term negative consequences for the very existence of competiton which is the best friend of the consumers. Trade-offs between short-term and temporal efficiences and the intensity and quality of competition are dangerous. It sometimes contravenes the substance of law as a guardian of civilization values and the expression of human social and psychological needs. A human being has never been (and is not even today) some „homo economicus“. The concept of the enhanced economic rationality (more economic approach) in a particular case to the detriment of the competition as such (as a goal in itself) seems to have been overcome in the practice of the Court of the EU.