On the Relationship on Law and Economic in the Legal Process of Making Business Law Effective.
Example of antitrust law: with the participation of the main actors and addresses. Interdisciplinary and interuniversity joint seminar of the Universities of St. Gallen and Basel. Summer Term 2000
1. intention
It is a matter of discussing, with reference to original actors and documents and with reference to the real-time axis, the questions arising in connection with the integration of law and economics in the phase of the creation of the antitrust law, the entry into force of the law and the future application and revision strategy. The main aim is to discuss those problems that have arisen or are arising in reality in an accentuated manner.
The point of reference is the shaping and application of the law and the planning of the future application and revision policy from the point of view of a credible and efficient implementation of the law in the field of competition policy and competition law. The seminar papers and lectures of the students should refer to concrete economic and legal questions. The legal-political aspects will be central for the presentation of the initial situation and the assessment of the future.
The seminar is a combination of project-related presentations by participants and experts and concrete elaborations by teams of students. The teams will be interdisciplinary and will present their results orally during the seminar. A reader will be available on 1 March 2000.
The Cartel Act will be the focus of attention as an example of the legal implementation of a modern economic law in Switzerland. The course is based on the postulate of the emergence and management of a specific culture of antitrust law in the network of those involved in the implementation of law in Switzerland. The interaction of law and economics is recreated or planned in all three seminar phases on a scale of 1:1 through the involvement of primary actors.
In the course of the internationalization of Swiss economic legislation, international benchmarking, a comparative focus on cross-border law, will be introduced in all three phases by involving corresponding foreign actors.
2 Concept and procedure
The seminar will take place on three whole days, which will be project-related at the following times
– Preparation of the Federal Council’s draft administrative act and dispatch as well as consideration of the bill in the commissions and councils
– Defining the Competition Commission’s implementation strategy and the undertakings’ behavioral strategy after the date of entry into force (1.7.1996) until the end of 1999.
– Discussion and definition of the application policy of the Competition Commission, the enterprise policy of the enterprises and the legislative policy of the government and parliament for the coming years. In the two intermediate phases, the students prepare the relevant reports and documents and visit the primary actors. The lecturers and assistants are available for coaching.
The three seminar days are intended to facilitate an in-depth discourse between lecturers, external experts and students as well as assistants on the emergence and progress of the Cartel Act. The individual actors will present and explain their experiences and †berlegungen in short presentations.
These remarks will then be discussed and questioned in the plenum and with the active participation of the students. In this context, it is important to point out the contribution of the students. Within the framework of their active participation in the seminar, they have the following tasks in particular:
– Reading the Reader
– Work in mixed interdisciplinary working groups
– Preparation and implementation of structured surveys of the external experts at their place of work and in the training courses
– Summary of the survey results and solution of the tasks in a written document
– Concise presentation of the results and solutions in the plenum by the interdisciplinary working groups (using state-of-the-art forms of communication such as slides, etc.)
– Active participation, especially in discussions
The seminar is based on a certain understanding of the shaping and implementation of the law as an ongoing process and on the postulate of the emergence and management of a certain internationalist antitrust culture in the network of those involved in shaping and implementing the law in Switzerland. The seminar is based on a specific, transactional and interdisciplinary didactic approach that focuses on the social realities influenced by law.
The course will first of all analyze and break down the individual and specific processes in connection with concrete legislation, the application strategies of the authorities and the legal prosecution strategies of companies. The interdisciplinary approach of the seminar should make it possible to illuminate the concrete legislative, application and prosecution processes from different perspectives (economic and legal). This also includes the development of a comprehensive understanding of the network of persons and instances involved in the individual processes of legal implementation.
In addition, the focus is on examining the contribution that university teaching – and in particular the chairs involved from St. Gallen and Basel – and companies and their legal and economic advisors can make to this analysis. In addition to the ongoing application and planning of the application of the law, this should result in sensitivity and concrete contributions to legal compliance (“compliance”) at †berprüfung, to communication problems in the enactment and application of economic laws, and to the necessary ongoing revision planning with a view to future changes in the law.
In this way, the seminar should also make a contribution to monitoring the success of the application, planning, and development of the law from the point of view of its implementation. De lege ferenda will also ask itself which additional areas (e.g. energy, agriculture) are to be included in the competition law regulation in a qualified manner and which other areas of the legal system are to be included in the legalization of competition.
Finally, the internationalist-law-comparative approach should help to examine the compatibility of Swiss competition law with foreign regulations, in particular, to critically question the principle of the so-called autonomous implementation of European law by the Swiss legislature and to anticipate possible effects of the various options in Swiss European policy.