Scope of anti-competitive practices.

Competition is what governs economic relations in markets, but this principle for major economic alliances is not an effective means to impose their control over markets. Given this, these alliances have attempted to find solutions to prevent and restrict competition and then control the markets. To achieve this, practices restricting competition have emerged that work to achieve the goal of competition in markets, and these agreements and practices have led to obstructing and restricting competition through relative prohibition and absolute prohibition of the scope of practices restricting competition. The subject of the study raises the following problem: Have economic alliances prevented competition, or does the relative ban or absolute ban have a role in imposing restrictions on practices that restrict competition? The study aims to shed light on protecting competition from restrictive practices, which has an international dimension, as it has become one of the basic obligations placed on the state and imposed on it by some institutions and economic blocs. The importance of the study appears in strengthening the role of the state by legislating to protect competition as a condition for establishing a partnership relationship with it and joining it, and the same applies to the World Trade Organization. At the end of the study, we identified some results and recommendations, among them: We must work to terminate all agreements in a way that leads to stopping the restrictive practices of competition that some establishments are accustomed to practicing and giving them an opportunity to settle their situations so that they are compatible with the provisions of Iraqi law.