Spring 2020, Volume 3, Number 1

Competition law, in essence, concerns the regulation of market power, to the benefit of consumers. From their inception, the antitrust rules have therefore unsurprisingly been primarily used to rein in monopolies and cartels on the supply side.

But monopolies are only one form that market power can take. Monopsonies are the flipside of monopolies: situations where market power is on the demand side, as there is only one buyer (or a limited number of buyers), but there are multiple suppliers. In the right circumstances, monopsonies are as liable as monopolies to lead to consumer harm.