Improved ability to compete with overseas competitors was also claimed.

technical collaboration between the firms, giving purchasers the benefits of both lower costs and a range of suppliers. Improved ability to compete with overseas competitors was also claimed. The regional unemployment gateway was successfully pleaded in Yarn Spinners (1959), the impact on employment in Lancashire being the issue. (However, the Court concluded that this benefit was outweighed by the detriment of perpetuating excess capacity in a declining industry, and the agreement was therefore struck down under the' tailpiece' which is appended to the gateways.) By contrast, competition law in the USA and the EC is ostensibly more focused on competition and economic efficiency. However, historically at least, the origins of US antitrust were somewhat different. Neale (1970, p. 459), for example, noted that: the rationale for antitrust is essentially a device to provide legal checks to economic power, and is not a pursuit of economic efficiency as such. Consequently the question asked is not whether antitrust decisions lead to the greatest economic efficiency but whether it can be said, given the non-economic reasons