Towards an International Governance of Transborder Mergers? - Competition Networks and Institutions between Centralism and Decentralism

Transnational mergers represent a major challenge for the coming of an international competition policy regime, particularly concerning its features and governance modes. The paper shows that neither an uniform world merger control nor a neglect of any international policy coordination can sufficiently deal with the problem of transborder mergers. Instead, more complex and advanced modes of governance like network governance or multilevel systems of institutions offer the possibility to integrate the demands for regulatory coherence and regulatory diversity. The recently established International Competition Network (ICN) represents such an attempt and though it offers some merits, considerable shortcomings and limits have to be recognized. Drawing on modern theoretical insights of the New Institutional Economics the paper analyzes the prospects and limits of the ICN-governance of transborder mergers and offers an extended framework for analysis that systematically addresses economic arguments for centralization and decentralization of merger control competences within a multilevel system of jurisdictions. Keywords: international antitrust, international governance, multilevel systems, International Competition Network, merger control, New Institutional Economics, international competition policy, diversity, antitrust federalism, transborder mergers, international policy coordination