Is There a Vatican School for Competition Policy?

This Article examines whether the Catholic Church’s social teaching has something to tell antitrust scholars and masters of competition policy. Although papal encyclical letters and other documents are not meant to provide an analytical framework giving clear answers to complex competition questions, this does not mean that these thoughts cannot benefit businessmen, scholars, and policy makers. The Vatican teaching helps us remember that business and morality do not belong to two different worlds, and that markets should serve the whole Man. It acknowledges the positive role of free markets,that is, the exercise of economic freedom as being an important part of human dignity, yet warns that competition can be preserved only if it is curbed both by moral and statutory rules. It is certainly not easy to find a balance between the commandments to “love your neighbor” and “not collect treasure on earth.” I argue that either antitrust law or other forms of self- or government regulation should prohibit market conduct that undermines business virtues

Temporal and contextual knowledge in model-based expert systems

A basic paradigm that allows representation of physical systems with a focus on context and time is presented. Paragon provides the capability to quickly capture an expert's knowledge in a cognitively resonant manner. From that description, Paragon creates a simulation model in LISP, which when executed, verifies that the domain expert did not make any mistakes. The Achille's heel of rule-based systems has been the lack of a systematic methodology for testing, and Paragon's developers are certain that the model-based approach overcomes that problem. The reason this testing is now possible is that software, which is very difficult to test, has in essence been transformed into hardware

The Interaction of Public and Private Enforcement of Competition Law before and after the EU Directive – a Hungarian perspective

The paper explores the changes the EU Directive on harmonizing certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions will bring about in Hungary, with a special focus placed on damages liability rules, the interaction of public and private enforcement of these rules, and the importance of class actions. Amendments of the Competition Act introduced in 2005 and 2009 had created new rules to promote the idea of private enforcement even before the Directive was adopted. Some of these rules remain unique even now, notably the legal presumption of a 10% price increase for cartel cases. However, subsequent cases decided by Hungarian courts did not reflect the sophistication of existing substantive and procedural rules. There has only ever been one judgment awarding damages, while most stand-alone cases involved minor competition law issues relating to contractual disputes. The paper looks at the most important substantial rules of tort law (damage, causality, joint and several liability), the co-operation of competition authorities and civil courts, as well as at (the lack of) class action procedures from the perspective of the interaction of public and private enforcement of competition law.Le document analyse les changements apportés par la directive européenne relative aux certaines règles régissant les actions en dommages et intérêts en droit national pour les infractions aux dispositions du droit de la concurrence en Hongrie, en particulier concernant les règles sur la responsabilité civile en matière de dommages, l’interaction de l’application publique et privée du droit de la concurrence et l'importance des recours collectifs. Les modifications à loi de la concurrence introduites en 2005 et 2009 ont créé de nouvelles règles pour promouvoir l'idée d'une application privée du droit de la concurrence même avant que la directive a été adoptée. Certaines de ces dispositions sont toujours uniques, notamment la présomption légale d'une augmentation de prix de 10% par les ententes. Néanmoins, les jugements ultérieurs rendus par les tribunaux ne reflétaient pas les règles de fond et de procédures sophistiquées. Il n’y avait juste le jugement qui a accordé des dommages et intérêts, alors que la plupart des actions autonomes (« stand-alone actions ») portaient sur des problèmes secondaires du droit de la concurrence liés aux conflits contractuels. L’article examine des règles les plus importantes du droit de la responsabilité civile (le dommage, la causalité, la responsabilité solidaire), la coopération entre les autorités de la concurrence et les tribunaux civils, ainsi que l’absence de mécanisme de recours collectifs et de la perspective de l’application publique et privée du droit de la concurrence

Is There a Vatican School for Competition Policy?

This Article examines whether the Catholic Church’s social teaching has something to tell antitrust scholars and masters of competition policy. Although papal encyclical letters and other documents are not meant to provide an analytical framework giving clear answers to complex competition questions, this does not mean that these thoughts cannot benefit businessmen, scholars, and policy makers. The Vatican teaching helps us remember that business and morality do not belong to two different worlds, and that markets should serve the whole Man. It acknowledges the positive role of free markets,that is, the exercise of economic freedom as being an important part of human dignity, yet warns that competition can be preserved only if it is curbed both by moral and statutory rules. It is certainly not easy to find a balance between the commandments to “love your neighbor” and “not collect treasure on earth.” I argue that either antitrust law or other forms of self- or government regulation should prohibit market conduct that undermines business virtues