צו השעה: שיתוף ציבור בצו מוסכם

A consent decree is a tool of statutory enforcement that allows the Director of the Antitrust Authority to enter into a regulatory contract with a regulated entity suspected of violating competition laws. The article seeks to examine antitrust consent decrees in Israel, in light of regulatory enforcement literature, contract-based regulation literature, participatory democracy theory and public choice theory. The article aims to promote the regulatory -legal theory, particularly with regard to public participation in regulatory contracts. The main argument put forward in the article is that Israeli antitrust contractual regulation is deficient in terms of transparency, reasoning and public participation, thereby harming both its legitimacy and effectiveness. The article suggests ways of substantially improving these mechanisms of transparency, reasoning and public participation. Despite the importance of consent decrees and their pervasive use over almost twenty years in antitrust regulation in Israeli markets, this is the first article in Israeli legal scholarship to focus on consent decrees.