The Pre-Modern Period of Competition Law

The precursors to NZ’s modern competition law were the Monopoly Prevention Act 1908 and the Commercial Trusts Act 1910, but a solid body of antitrust doctrine never materialized. The Privy Council did its best (or so it seemed) in a landmark appeal in 1927 to take a contrary view from the New Zealand judges. In future decades reliance was placed upon the cumbersome British bureaucratic-style restrictive trade practices law as a model for our legislation. Yet the paramount reason for the moribund state of competition law was a strong policy preference by successive governments for direct regulation of the economy based on the unstated, but rock-solid, premise of social stability. Large-scale intervention in the economy was the norm. It took a revolution in economic philosophy to occur and that came in 1984 under the Lange Labour government. The Commerce Act 1986 is seen as a key part in the newly deregulated economy. The Act was not a natural, incremental step in the evolutionary process but a leap (saltation) forward into the “modern” era.