EU's gain is U.S. loss in influence on antitrust

[lovuian]

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSL2549299720071028?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

The European Union's antitrust agency is becoming more influential just as its U.S. counterparts have grown more cautious and inactive, experts say.

The European Commission's recent success in forcing Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to carry out antitrust sanctions underscores the differences, and academic researchers say the U.S. is also hanging back in merger challenges.

That makes Brussels, more than Washington, the place where companies must go to get their deal through and where companies must ready themselves against possible antitrust action. It also means competition agencies around the world look to Brussels, as South Korea did in taking action against Microsoft.

"There seems to be a sundown atmosphere in Washington," said Angelo Cardani of Milan's Bocconi University, once a senior aide of former European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti.

"Brussels is not affected by electoral politics and shines out in moments when other agencies are caught up in the political cycle," he said.

Research by two leading U.S. antitrust economists, who both served as antitrust agency chiefs during the Democratic Clinton administration, shows U.S. merger enforcement under the Republican Bush administration at a nadir.
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