Competition Act 2002 (No 14 of 2002)

10th April 2002 | Acts

The purpose of the Competition Act 2002 is to consolidate and modernize the existing enactments relating to competition and mergers. The Act replaces the Mergers, Takeovers and Monopolies (Control) Act, 1978, as amended, the Competition Act 1991, and the Competition (Amendment) Act 1996.

The Act contains two main prohibitions, it prohibits and renders void "all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition in trade in any goods or services in the State or in any part of the State".

These include agreements which:

fix prices
limit or control production or markets
share markets or sources of supply
apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties or
attach supplementary obligations to a commercial contract which have nothing to do with the subject of the contract.

The Act prohibits the abuse of a dominant position. It is important to recognise that it does not prohibit a dominant position - only its abuse. Generally a firm is considered to be dominant if it is able to act without taking account of the reaction of its customers or its rivals, e.g. a firm which can increase its prices unilaterally because it knows that its customers have few, if any, satisfactory alternative sources of supply and therefore little choice but to pay the higher price. The Act is not breached when a firm's vigorous competition takes sales away from less efficient rivals, since this is competition working properly.