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Mina Hosseini, Apr 14, 2015
Competition law is attracting considerable interest in developing countries because of their desire for economic development and competitive markets. Few studies have been published about Iranian Competition Law and several comparative law studies have found that Iran does not have a competition law, competition authority, or the merger control regime. This perception is due to two reasons. The first is that, even though historically in Iranian law there had been some provisions regarding competition law and unfair competition, until 2007 Iran didn’t have a competition act. The second reason is, notwithstanding the fact that Iran approved a competition law in 2007, this act was part of another act regarding privatization and remained hidden.
So this perception is false. This article presents the competition law provisions of Iran, especially the Act of the execution of the General Policies of article 44 of the Constitution, and uses a comparative study method. The European Union has one of the most valuable and practical competition laws in the world. Many countries, including Iran, have been inspired by European competition law and policy, and many acts are modeled upon European competition provisions. This article examines the similarities and differences between TFEU and the Act.
This article is divided into three sections. The first section gives a brief history of competition law in the Iranian legal system. The second section examines the general rules of the Act, including objectives, personal application, unilateral anticompetitive conducts, collective anticompetitive conducts, and mergers and acquisitions. In the third section, we examine the competition council—its role in Iranian competition law, members of the council, duties and authorities of the council, sanctions that council can impose—and the Retrial Board, which has been established to review the competition council decisions.
