CNE and CEI Conference Focuses on Antitrust, Microsoft

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On April 20, Centre for the New Europe, (CNE) together with The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), gathered a huge crowd of policy makers, journalists and friends at a half-day international conference on antitrust regulation, with particular focus on the recent Microsoft case in the European Union. Speakers included Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy at CEI, The Honourable Ronald A. Cass, Chairman of the Center for the Rule of Law and Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law, as well as Christian Kirchner, Professor of Law at Humbolt University in Berlin, among others.

In his introductory remarks, Mattias Bengtsson, President of CNE thanked Microsoft Corporation for sponsoring the conference, but made clear that CNE in no way is a lobbyist organization, for Microsoft or any other company. “We are here to defend free markets”, said Bengtsson, “not particular companies”.

One major focus point during the discussion became the impossibility of predicting innovation and, consequently, the risks involved in trying to regulate entrepreneurs – or established companies. Antitrust laws, designed to protect consumers, more often than not turn out to be hurting consumers.

Others pointed to the fact that antitrust measures can often be a poor excuse for vested interests. It can be tempting, and is, for manufacturers to support regulations that in the short run are beneficial because they hurt competitors. In the long run however, all players tend to lose.

When the Competition Directorate of the EU focuses on disciplining older state-sponsored cartels, when it attacks state-created and protected monopolies, that is a good thing. But antitrust actions against successful businesses, such as the antitrust penalties against Microsoft, threaten to disrupt innovation and economic growth by substituting political management for market processes, by protecting competitors rather than competition.

In the end, it’s the consumer who pays the price. Consumers don’t want brands. Consumers want functionality and reliability at the best price. As Jonathan Zuck, President of the Association for Competitive Technology (USA) put it; “I don’t care about Microsoft. All I want is information.”

The CEI also took the opportunity to distribute copies of the free market classic “Tom Smith and his Incredible Bread Machine”, the short story about an unfortunate inventor who invents a machine that makes inexpensive bread for the poor, but ends up in jail because he himself is becoming rich.

Lunch and remarks by CNE Senior Fellow Johan Norberg concluded the event.