The ACCC's Caltex-Mobil decision: A network view

On December 2nd 2009, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced its intention to oppose the acquisition of Mobil's retail assets by Caltex, based in part on an assessment of adverse competition effects in some local markets. Their assessment was based upon the proporti...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bloch, Harry, Wills-Johnson, Nick
Format: Working Paper
Published: Centre for Research in Applied Economics, Curtin Business School 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/20561
Description
Summary:On December 2nd 2009, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced its intention to oppose the acquisition of Mobil's retail assets by Caltex, based in part on an assessment of adverse competition effects in some local markets. Their assessment was based upon the proportion of sites within each local market that would become controlled by Caltex post-merger. This paper suggests an alternative method foranalysing competitive effects, which formalises local market structure into a network and assesses the position of each outlet in that network.