ABSTRACT
Identifying and, more importantly, ranking the objectives of CSME competition policy, with a view to establishing which of them are the most important to the achievement of the general objectives of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, is essential to the framing of a coherent body of substantive competition rules. Indeed, Chapter VIII RTC and, in particular, its Part One, which concerns rules of competition, will be interpreted in the light of the objectives that CSME competition policy will strive to achieve, whilst not forgetting the wider political and economic goals set out by the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. Accordingly, on some occasions, the conduct of enterprises 1 operating within the CSME will be regarded as lawful or unlawful depending upon which of the objectives of the CSME competition policy is being given priority. This point is well illustrated when one compares US anti-trust law with EU competition law. For example, the priority given by the European Court of
Justice (ECJ) to the objective of integrating the markets of the Member States, and thus creating an internal market, has resulted in some business conduct of fi rms being condemned under EU law whilst the same conduct is perfectly lawful under US anti-trust law.
