This situation can also lead to different national competition agencies arriving at different conclusions. A merger between a US company and an EU firm may be of benefit to the US and EU economies, but may have adverse consequences to global competition and reduce consumer choice and investment possibilities in other countries where the companies operate. Strategic business alliances also pose a threat to domestic competition law in that they are designed to foster co-operation between competing firms. Such co-operation can be designed to offset huge research costs and spread risk. However, there is also a potential for such agreements to step over the line between co-operation and cartelisation.
International cartels are the most stark challenge for national competition agencies.
As the agreement is an international one, there is no one agency capable of dealing with the agreement on an international level. It is up to national agencies to co-operate, or go it alone in trying to tackle the cartel. Attempts by businesses to fix prices or secure monopolistic market positions almost always have the objective of promoting inefficient practices and the only way to stop this happening is through the action of government or other public agencies. There are, however, many countries without the necessary resources to monitor international business agreements and the possible effects they may have. An extension of the multilateral WTO principles to the competition area would help both to underpin the framework needed to maintain a fair and open world trading system and to promote successful competition policies at national level.