Looking backward, thinking forward should distributive concerns count in competition law?
Resumen
Over the last years, Peruvian competition Agency has showed a tendency towards sanctioning abuses of dominant position on distributive grounds, regardless of efficiency concerns. This has caused both ideological and practical debates. Hereby, I will put aside the former to focus on the latter. This research shows that there are some conducts that should be prosecuted by antitrust law, which are essentially exploitative; i.e., price discrimination via “metering”. This practice might cause wealth-transfers, along with efficiencies and inefficiencies. Hence, I will use cases decided in the United States on this conduct to answer whether antitrust law can be considered, at least sometimes, well-equipped to address distributive concerns. I hope this will shed some light on the ongoing debate regarding the usage of distributive concerns in antitrust law.