This piece was first published in the October 2017 issue of The Practical Lawyer [(2017) PL (Comp. L) October 104]

Antitrust authorities worldwide have actively investigated and penalised dominant enterprises on various types of anti-competitive conduct. However, historically, very few cases have been pursued on the issue of excessive pricing by dominant entities. It is a popular perception that this seemingly unanimous reluctance by competition authorities to initiate cases in this realm of antitrust laws could be attributable to the perceived difficulties in establishing when pricing is truly excessive. While the allegations of excessive pricing have been often brought up in a multitude of jurisdictions, its successful enforcement has been rare given the challenges in determination of the ambit of ‘excessive’ and against what ‘benchmark’ price should it be compared. This coupled with the paucity of substantial evidence concerning the costs and expenditures incurred in manufacturing/providing the goods/services, and the presence of commercial justifications for charging the excess over and above the costs and a reasonable margin[1] have further contributed to the dormancy of this rather key issue under antitrust laws. We briefly examine here the concept of excessive pricing, reasons it is fraught with difficulties and the old as well as the recent decisions which have the potential to be a game-changer in the domain of ‘excessive pricing’.Continue Reading Excessive Pricing: A Neglected Antitrust Concept?