Foreword

• Author: Paul Crampton
• Pages: 23-24

xxiii

FOR E WOR D

This book comes to us in very cha llenging times. Even before the onset

of the COVID-19 pandemic, income inequality was rising markedly,

international support for open market s and globalization was beginni ng

to wane, and protectionist sentiments were grow ing. As these trends

have persisted, the shi ft to the online world for shopping, entertainment,

and social interaction ha s accelerated. This has accentuated concern s

about “big data,” such as its rapid accumulation by a small number of

global behemoths and the ways in wh ich it is being used. To a signif‌i-

cant degree, that accumulation has been facilitated by t he acquisition

of innovative start-up companies, as the behemoth s expand their reach

into new domains.

In the face of these and other developments, questions are increas-

ingly being posed about existing competition/antitrust l aws and

enforcement tools. Are they up to the challenge? Do they need to be

modif‌ied? Some, including proponents of “hipster antitrust,” answer

the latter question in the negative.

Against this b ackdrop, this book oers a very practical and helpful

mainstream perspective, enriched by the author’s experience of over

three decades of hand s-on work in the legal trenches of competition law,

following the completion of an LLM thesis at McGill University on the

adjudication of competition law issues in 1983.

When the merger and abuse of dominance provisions of t he Compe-

tition Act were decrimin alized in 1986, the year John joined the Depart-

ment of Justice, he was at “ground zero” as new enforcement approaches