Introduction

Over the years, Apple and Samsung have engaged in intense competition to capture the market share and win over consumers. This competition has driven both companies to continuously innovate and improve their smartphones. Each new product release from one company has pushed the other to respond with even more advanced features and technologies — The Type C cable is not exactly an advanced feature in 2023 but you get what I mean. 

Corporations battle it out everyday to provide the best solution to human problems. Pushing innovation to an unprecedented level.

Without competition, a single seller dominates an entire industry and has control over supply and pricing of goods and services. This is called a “Monopoly” and it is detrimental to society.

Monopolies eliminates or greatly reduces competition in a specific market. Thus, there is less incentive for companies to innovate, offer better products or services, or lower prices. 

For our dear capitalist societies to thrive, laws that prevent the formation of monopolies must be created and enforced. These are called Anti-trust laws. Businesses are prohibited by Anti-trust laws from carrying out unfair practices that prevents and restricts competition.

Restrictive Practices

In Nigeria, Restrictive practices and agreements are regulated through the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act which lists the following as prohibited acts;

• Directly or indirectly fixing the selling price of goods
• Dividing markets by allocating customers, suppliers, etc
• Controlling the production and distribution of goods/services
• Collusive tendering 

This list is not conclusive as the commission in charge has the right to declare an agreement or practice as restrictive. 

Anti competitive practices could come in different and somewhat more unconventional forms. Earlier this year, Muzz a relationship app for Muslims backed by YCombinator accused dating giants Match of trying to stifle it through baseless litigation. — In my opinion, quite a creative way to hinder competition. 

The United States v. Google

Recently, the news of the United States Ministry of Justice suing Google for alleged anticompetitive practices has raised a lot of eyebrows as so many have labeled this the “biggest antitrust trial” in decades.

Google has been accused by the United States Government of unfairly dominating the search engine space by paying a lot of money to companies to make sure it’s search engine is default on most phones and browsers. This has denied rivals much chance in the market. 

Google has argued in defence stating that they never hindered users from using other search engines as the option still exist thus cannot be said to be an illegitimate exclusionary agreement.

The US Department of Justice will have to prove that this agreement is restrictive in nature and honestly it may all come down to the discretion and interpretation of the court.

However, any where this case swings one thing is certain that this is a landmark case which will propel the fight against the stifling of growth of businesses by the top dogs. 

Every business deserves a level playing field in it’s quest to be an industry leader and for the benefit of society as well, after all, Competition is the mother of all invention.