United States Competition Law with respect to Unfair Trade Practices

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Law, grade: 1, University of Linz, course: Bachelorseminar, language: English, abstract: According to Black's Law dictionary, competition is the struggle for commercial advantage. The efforts taken of companies to achieve the respective commercial advantages can be - especially in a free market economy - ample. Let's illustrate this fact by the following examples: Suppose that a automobile manufacturer, incensed by a car magazine's constant ridicule of its cars, launches a rival magazine with a similar name and layout, copies the other paper's stories,lures away the employees, advertisers and subscribers of the other magazine by offering them higher wages and lower advertising and subscribing rates and finally succeeds in running its critical opponent out of business. Has the automobile manufacturer engaged in any unfair trade practices for which the owners of the car magazine may seek legal remedy? Or has the manufacturer acted in a permissible way to the magazine's attack? Furthermore, could the magazine be said to have engaged in an unfair trade practice by permanently ridiculing the cars and its manufacturer2? How can a merger between two or more businesses which are on the same market level and which manufacture similar products in the same geographic region influence consumers? What if two competitors agree in the artificial setting of prices at a certain level, contrary to the workings of the free market? Do consumers have legal remedies against companies who engage in false advertising or who distribute faulty and dangerous goods? The body of law which deals with these subjects is known as competition law, which can broadly be divided into Consumer Protection Law and unfair trade practices on the one hand and antitrust-law on the other hand. The bachelor thesis at hand takes the reader to a journey through competition law with a special insight into Unfair Trade Practices. After the study of the bachelor thesis the respective reader should be able to generally orientate him- or herself in this highly practice-oriented field of law.