Basics of the Prohibition of Discriminatory Transactions from the Perspective of Competition Law (Study in the American Legal System, the European Union and Iranian Law)

One of the subjects of the argument in the competition law is discriminatory transactions; the meaning of discriminatory transactions is any contract that, even though their situation is the same, there is unjustifiable discrimination in one of them. These transactions are anti-competition, and they are prohibited actions in competition law. The authors surveyed the basics of prohibiting discriminatory transactions in this article. This article showed the basics of the prohibition of discriminatory transactions in the USA, containing: Consumer welfare, the fight against monopoly, and market support in a free market system. Also, in the European Union, the basics protect the subscriber market and competitive structures. In Iran, these transactions are prohibited based on not being allowed to abuse the right, public order, and Jurisprudential rules such as the rule of no harm and the prohibition of disrupting the system. Therefore, despite the economic viewpoints against the prohibition of these contracts, there are still solid legal reasons and grounds that it is necessary to prohibit these transactions under certain conditions. The research method is comparative, and the economic and legal grounds for banning these transactions have been examined in the three legal systems of the United States, the European Union, and Iran.