Controlled Chaos with Consumer Welfare as the Winner – a Study of the Goals of Polish Antitrust Law

Abstract

This article presents the main issues relating to the goals of modern Polish competition law. It examines the relationship between the subject-matter of competition law, its function and its goals. It identifies various goals of competition law as well as their acceptance in the legal doctrine and jurisprudence. The study shows that the goals of Polish competition law have always been limited to enhancing efficiency and consumer welfare, with this latter term being understood in a post-Chicago-school fashions, rather than accordingly to its Chicago-school origin. This article shows how an 18-years competition law system, rather accidentally than deliberately, took the best ideas from both the American and the European legal tradition and mix them up into an incoherent, yet workable system of competition protection which is favourable towards efficient operations and, at the same time, safeguards consumers against exploitation and diminished choice.