LA CONCORRENZA NEGLI ORDINAMENTI COSTITUZIONALI. PROFILI DI COMPARAZIONE TRA ITALIA E STATI UNITI D’AMERICA

This research aims to focus on the basis of the freedom of competition in the constitutional systems. On one hand, the thesis reconstructs the antitrust role in the constitutional framework and, on the other hand, it investigates the relationship between the antitrust enforcement and the interests of the community and of the private citizen, as a consumer. Competition is a rule of neutralization of the power and the choice of the market structure is an expression of the correlation between power and liberty. The need for a balance between authority and liberty was the reason of the adoption of the Sherman Act in the United States of America. In order to analyze the relationship between power and liberty - besides the cultural, institutional and judicial evolution of the competition in the Italian constitutional system - the thesis develops the history of the adoption of the Sherman Act. The US experience is shaped by the role of the competition regulation as an instrument of public policy and the protection of the individual fundamental rights, under a substantial and procedural perspective, through the claim of class actions: a feature also recently introduced in Italy. The thesis starts with the analysis of the introduction of the freedom of competition in Italy, from the efforts of the Constitutional framers up to the recent reform motion of Art. 41 of the Italian Constitution. Art. 41 represents the basis of the competition, even if it explicitly refers just to the freedom of economic initiative. On this aspect, the thesis thoroughly studies the relevant doctrine on the issue, and examines the Italian developments since accession to the European Economic Community and the adoption of the statute n. 287/1990. The statement of the principle of competition in the Italian constitutional structure is also the result of the long route run by the Italian Constitutional Court. For a long time, the Court considered the competition as a fact, consequent to the enforcement of the freedom of economic initiative. Step by step, the Court attributed a constitutional value to the competition. Moreover, the Court played an important role in the settlement of the boundaries between Regions and State on the legislative regulation of the competition. Indeed, the competition, as a principle intended for the neutralization of power, shows the influence of the antitrust model on the development of a democratic legal system. Therefore, in the last part of the thesis there is a comparative analysis between United States of America and Italy on some issues, having a special purport on the antitrust systems under a public law point of view, id est: the relationship between information pluralism and freedom of competition, the relationship between competition and consumer, the competition policies in the federal and in the regional system, and the repercussions of the competition model in the democratic legal system.