LUTZCHRISTIAN WOLFF School of Law The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• A s i a n C o m p e t i t i o n F o r u m
• Third Annual Conference
• Hong Kong, 10 December 2007
• Asian Culture
• and
• Competition Law in Asia
• 1.Introduction
• 2. Culture and the law
• 3. Culture and competition law
• 4. Installing truly Asian competition law systems
• 5. Final remarks

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Culture
• historically evolved values, attitudes and
  meanings
• learned and shared by the members of a given
  community
• influencing their material and non-material way
  of life.
• (Monir Tayeb, Cultural Differences across the
  World, in Tayeb (ed.), International Management
  (Harlow et.al., 2003), pp. 8-27 (10)

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Culture
• determines human behavior!

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Law has to fit into the respective
• social,
• economic,
• legal
• and
• CULTURAL
• environment in order to be effective.

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• CULTURE
• determines
• HUMAN BEHAVIOR
• determines
• COMPETITION LAW.
• Really?

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Asian Culture and Competition Law
• What is Asian culture?
• How to translate Asian culture into Asian
  competition law?
• Asian culture and legislative practice

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong)

• Asian Culture
• Asia Kazakhstan, Israel, Yemen, China, Malaysia,
  India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Philippines, Singapore
  
• Mainland China Hong Kong Japan
• Multi-cultural Asian societies

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• How to translate
• Asian culture into Asian competition law?
• General cultural differences
• DO NOT
• automatically justify conclusions
• regarding
• any impact on competition law structures!

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• How to translate
• Asian culture into Asian competition law?
• Verifying the cultural compatibility of
  competition laws
• empirical truth
• vs
• investment of time, money, energy

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Problems cannot be solved at the same level of
  awareness that created them.
• (Albert Einstein)

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• but,
• the awareness of the (potential) cultural
  determination of competition law is the first
  step to reaching the level at which the problems
  arising out of such awareness can be addressed.
• Not only in Asia!

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LUTZ-CHRISTIAN WOLFFSchool of Law The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

• Thank you!