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The European Union's (EU) involvement in high-profile and controversial competition disputes has raised questions about the Union's decision-making in the regulation of international business activity. Why does the EU decide to pursue such cases that hold the potential to destabilise bilateral and multilateral trading relations? This paper investigates the role of international and domestic factors that influence the EU's competition decisions as applied to foreign corporations. To explain the EU's decisions in external competition policy, the paper considers the causal influence of economic internationalization as well as the domestic pressures exerted by firms and politicians during the merger review process. Empirically, the paper analyses two merger disputes between the EU and the United States of America (US)�the 1997 Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger and the 2001 GE-Honeywell merger�that provide useful insights and lessons for practitioners and academics alike. The paper finds that, despite its destabilising potential, the EU decides to pursue a vigorous external competition policy primarily as the result of international economic pressures and domestic political dynamics. While the preferences and strategies of individual firms play only a limited role in the EU's decision-making in external competition policy, they seem to play a more significant role in US politicians' decisions to intervene in transatlantic merger review cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As firms increasingly trade and invest internationally, the decisions of competition regulators can increasingly interact with the political decisions that govern trade policy. Competition regulators prefer promoting international convergence and cooperation as a means to avoid trade-related and other political interventions in their regulatory decisions. This article employs a venue shopping model of policy change to identify those international organisations through which the European Union's Directorate General Competition is most likely to seek cooperation and convergence in international competition policy. The Directorate General Competition shops among four different international organisations-United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Trade Organisation and International Competition Network. Five different legal features frame and determine Directorate General Competition's preference for selecting among these different venues, which, in turn, helps to explain the current and future dynamics of competition policy in the new trade politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The linkage between trade and competition policy adds an important dimension to the new trade politics. As firms increasingly trade and invest internationally, the decisions of competition regulators can increasingly interact with the political decisions that govern trade policy. Competition regulators prefer promoting international convergence and cooperation as a means to avoid trade-related and other political interventions in their regulatory decisions. This paper employs a venue shopping model of policy change to identify those international organizations through which the European Union’s Directorate General Competition is most likely to seek cooperation and convergence in international competition policy. The Directorate General Competition shops among four different international organizations—United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Trade Organization and International Competition Network. Five different legal features frame and determine Directorate General Competition’s preference for selecting among these different venues, which, in turn, helps to explain the current and future dynamics of competition policy in the new trade politics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]