Ethical business regulation and competition enforcement: Challenging orthodoxy

Journal article

There has been a revolution within the world of regulatory theory and practice in relation to ‘enforcement’. This piece summarises how the understanding of how ‘enforcement’ can—and can fail to—affect future behaviour has shifted. Instead of asking how to increase deterrence, the real question is how to affect future behaviour. Evidence is reviewed of the limited empirical evidence that deterrence affects behaviour, of the findings of behavioural science on why people obey or break rules, of a shift by UK regulators from enforcement based on deterrence to responsive regulation, of the emergence of ‘Ethical Business Regulation’ as the fundamental policy to support regulatory compliance and business growth, and of examples of where public authorities have adopted such approaches with success. These subject is treated at greater length elsewhere, and readers are referred to that extensive discussion. The piece concludes with a recommended approach to enforcement of competition law.

Authors: Hodges, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Sweet and Maxwell
• Journal: European Competition Law Review
• Volume: 38
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 237-246
• Publication date: 2017-05-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-03-10
• ISSN: 0144-3054
• Keywords: Competition enforcement ethical