By Chief Justice RS French*
In his opening speech to the August 2009 Law Council of Australia Trade Practices Workshop, the Chief Justice looked back 10 years to the themes dominating discussion about competition law on the 25th anniversary of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth). They included misuse of market power, the conflicting purposes of competition law and their relationship to popular perceptions of its proper objectives. Moving forward 10 years, those issues are still with us. Additionally, in the shadow of the global financial crisis there is greater sensitivity to the interface between international trade and competition law and developments in the Asia Pacific region, and that economic evidence in the legal process in the enforcement of competition law is likely to face a particular challenge in jury trials dealing with cartel prosecutions.
The full article can be accessed here: “Surfing the wavefront” (2010) 18 TPLJ 77.
*Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.
