TRENDS: COMPETITION POLICY – FOOD SECTOR – ABUSE OF DOMINANCE POSITION – MARKET CONCENTRATION – BUYER POWER – UNITED STATES – EUROPEAN UNION

Competition law and policy and the food value chain

KEYWORDS

"This On-Topic revisits the complex issues rising in the food sector and its value chain. Both the European Union and the US competition authorities have scrutinized relationships between food chain actors. The increasing market concentration raises new challenges for competition enforcement authorities dealing with the creation of new powerful actors at the distribution but also at the factor of production (input) levels. The concept of superior bargaining power has played a key role, sometimes criticised, in order to assess these relationships. The papers also discuss the critical intersection of competition law with public policy, with the aim to preserve sustainability, food safety and the stability of agricultural markets."

Introduction Ioannis Lianos Professor, Faculty of Laws, UCL, London ; Director, Centre for Law, Economics and Society ; Chief Researcher, Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, HSE (Moscow), Principal Investigator of the Multi-jurisdictional project “Competition law and policy and the global food value chain” 1. The food supply chain is generally depicted as composed by three main levels: agricultural production, industrial processing and wholesale or retail distribution. At a close look, the food supply chain becomes more complex than this tri-partition, involving a number of other stages and links that add value to the chain either in the form of goods or services inputs [1]. At each level of the supply chain, undertakings perform specific activities supplying goods or

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