Does the presence of just one producer automatically point to an absence of competition requiring anti-trust authorities to intervene?

Economic Note / September 2007

Competition is considered to be lacking when a company holds large shares of a “market” – all the more so when it is alone in producing a given good or service. Such firms are systematically suspected by public authorities of “abuse of dominant position,” and their prices and practices are condemned as anti-competitive. Anti-trust policy in Europe, as elsewhere in the world, subjects them to various penalties.

However, apart from cases of legally protected monopolies, competition continues to exist. Public authorities are really just preventing those companies from better satisfying consumers. The authorities’ decisions block rather than favour free competition.