Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Regulation of Monopoly and Competition Policy
Regulation of Monopoly and Competition Policy
What is regulation?
Rules set by government or their agencies that seek to control the operation of firms
who may have monopoly power in their own industry
Regulation is designed to deal with the problem of market failure – where markets fail
to reach an optimal allocation of resources
Monopoly power may lead to consumers being exploited (i.e. prices charged above the
true marginal cost of supply) – leading to excess profits being made by suppliers in the
market
In terms of regulation of monopoly the government attempts to prevent operations
that are against the public interest – so called anti-competitive practices
Problems occur when the market structure in a given industry becomes monopolistic – e.g. if a
merger or a take-over causes a firm to supply more than 25% of the market output (defined as a
working monopoly). Mergers are investigated by the Competition Commission.
Oligopolies can also lead to market failure – particularly if there is evidence of collusive
behaviour by the dominant businesses within an industry
The Competition is a public body established by the Competition Act 1998. Formerly known as
the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, it came into being on 1st April 1999
1. Reporting on referrals made by the Director General of Fair Trading, the DTI and the
main utility regulators
Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty of Rome prohibits certain market practices deemed to be anti-
competitive and which act against the interests of consumers:
New legislation comes into force from 1st March 2000 and the Competition Commission will
hear appeals against decisions made by regulators. Regulators and DGFT will carry out the
prohibitions. Regulators have the power to enforce prohibitions and to impose fines of up to 10%
of turnover
Prohibitions
Anti-competitive agreements
A last ditch effort if the Director General of Fair Trading cannot remedy the problems
Tends to follow the merger business cycle (very strong at the moment!)
Gas
Ofgem (led by Callum McCarthy) remains concerned about the barriers to entry in the electricity
supply market, many of which it plans to address over the next eighteen months. However the
job of the regulator is changing away from monitoring the performance of the single privatised
utility – towards assessing the performance of a competitive market as a whole.
"The Government's policies are designed to put more power in the hands of consumers. For
energy competition to work properly, markets must be genuinely open with strong, well-
informed customers. We have already secured for the UK the most open energy markets in the
world. Five million households have switched gas supplier, saving around �65 each, while in
electricity, four million have switched, saving around �20 a year each.
Telecommunications
British Telecom was privatised in 1984 although Mercury had been granted a licence in 1982
and began operating in 1983. The industry regulator OFTEL was established at the same time.
Initial regulation was a pricing formula of RPI-X, where X = 3% for the first 5 years
Competition was also encouraged with other operators e.g. in 1985 - Cellnet and Vodafone
Began at RPI - 3%
Erosion of the duopoly between BT and Mercury - by 1996 there were over 100 local cable
operators and18 fixed link operators such as Energis and Ionica
Mobile telephone operators are now bidding for 5 new transmission licences
Average UK telecoms prices have fallen almost 50% in real terms in the last ten years
and competition has fostered the development and introduction of new services
Telecommunications regulation is now being rolled back where competition has
provided consumer protection
OFTEL will no longer promote competition where it considers the market is
competitive
In markets where competition is not effective OFTEL will continue to promote
competition