Born in 1890. Miserably old but still chasing some meaning of life. Intensely longing for a purpose. What you are about to read may change your perspectives forever. For the better I hope, although you might not like to take much joy in it. If you ponder over things around you more closely, nothing is as it seems. The most amazing people you have admired can turn out much less admirable.

For 131 years, the desire to curb unlawful acts has had limited results. For one thing, while capturing market power is anyone’s dream, possessing a certain high market share can be deadly. In 1911, Standard Oil Trust of businessman Rockefeller, the biggest American company at the time, was ordered to break up into over 30 pieces. Why? Because Rockefeller had become a monopolist, too smart and at times just too manipulative. He had joy in eliminating his challengers and ultimately paid the price. Rockefeller’s story was compelling, for a while.

Very recently, just at your fingertips, you have noticed that the increasing popularity of Instagram left Facebook with no option but to purchase it outright. Same destiny for WhatsApp. Google would not sit idly by when everything had become searchable in cool video clips on YouTube, so Google had to purchase YouTube.

In fact, in the last decade, these two giant firms – Facebook and Google – have acquired several hundred firms. Have these two firms become too big for the government to control? In a democracy, power needs to come from the people through their representative government and not from unaccountable corporations. The last time your friend bought a pack of chocolate from a supermarket, did she get advertisements about chocolates the next day from one of her social media platforms? Don’t ask how the platform got to know about her purchase.

American law enforcement agencies will need to deal with giant tech firms and how they will do that will be quite interesting to see.

But remember that business has always been a battlefield and no law can pretend to change that. Nope. What competition law usually seeks to do is simply to ensure that competitive acts remain within defined boundaries, that there is a purpose to aspire to. That’s right, a very noble purpose. And, unfortunately, this exactly is where problems arise.

Apart from limited capabilities and little resources available to law enforcement agencies, the unclear purpose of a law usually invites conflicting theories and leaves too much discretion to implementers and judges for whom business’s raison d’être could seem quite blurry.

Since the adoption of the Sherman Act in 1890, followed by other laws, the US Supreme Court has tested various theories which appear to embrace until recently the idea that the sole purpose of the antitrust law (competition law) is to protect the consumer welfare. Yet, after 131 years, more and more academics and judges now become less convinced and are actively debating what should be the ultimate policy goal in the regulation of competition. Should this goal be consumer welfare protection or rather the protection of the competition itself? While lawyers get juicy in their thoughts and letters, Google and Facebook have already changed their names.

But don’t despair. I am not saying that we must face the same issues. We can do wonders. Whoever drafted our law deserves respect. The Cambodian version of Competition Law has cleverly navigated the stormy waters. We won’t bother to argue over what should be the purpose of our law. We don’t waste time. Instead, our law has conveniently created many purposes in such a way that anyone would find some joy in it. Written in Article 1 of our law, some purposes definitely fall under the consumer welfare category while others aim to protect the competitive process itself. The most immediately available explanation about consumer welfare is that when competition is striving, your uncle should be able to purchase a TV of quality at the lowest possible price.

It was to protect his interests that Article 1 needed to include phrases such as products and services of ‘high quality’, ‘low price’, ‘abundance’ and ‘numerous choices’. These purposeful words are clear and fairly simple to understand for laymen as they are close to home. They push automakers and food delivery companies to keep innovating to better serve customers like you.

The second category— the protection of the competition itself—seems obscure, distant and requires impeccable observations of specialists to help reveal its meaning, perhaps best just left to the best minds who may have perfect senses and sensibility: ‘business dealings based on honesty and equality’, ‘increase of economic efficiency’, ‘encouraging the birth of new businesses’.

So, should our competition law be more for main streets than for board rooms? The answer is obvious: nobody knows fully yet. At least not today. Our law is not even one year old yet. What I do know is that 131 years of the US’ antitrust law have demonstrated that the consumer welfare side of it can bring out undesirable results. Therefore, you would need to unleash the best side of you to help prevent corporate power from becoming too big to care for you. For we will not have much joy in a society where giant firms could become too powerful, control most aspects of our life and dictate our next order for a pizza we might not even like. It won’t taste that good.

Virak Prum, LLB, LLM, PhD (2006 Nagoya University) teaches law at CamEd Business School. The views expressed are solely his own.