THE HYSTORICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND LEGAL FUNDAMENTALS OF COMBATING UNFAIR COMPETITION Viorel ROȘ  Andreea LIVĂDARIU  Abstract Unfair competition is abuse. It is abuse against freedom of competition. Abuse against freedom of initiative and freedom of commerce. Who shall obey the laws of honour and probity? Who has the obligation to do it? Fair businessmen! Who says unfair, means contrary to the objective behaviour of honest man in business. Of man for whom the freedom of the other cannot be violated by the exercise of his liberties, because he understands his own freedom as a necessity. Business morality is a particular form, a species of universal morality, the sum of legal constraints and honest commercial practices sanctioned by law. But the world of businessmen is not populated by angels. Keywords: unfair competition, freedom of competition, monopoly, freedom of commerce and industry, abuse of freedom. 1. Introduction Competition is rivalry in a field of activity, it is a competition between people who act on the same market in order to monopolize it and to get the most profits. There is competition when the consumer has alternatives in choosing products or services, competition being related to the freedom of choice. By pursuing its goals (promoting innovation, efficient resource allocation, limiting economic power, fair distribution of income), competition is an efficient means to organize markets, economies. The purpose of prohibiting acts of unfair competition is to ensure respect for fair market behaviour. Observing the freedom of others. Freedom of competition derives from the freedom of trade and the freedom of industry being acknowledged constitutionally [(Article 135 (1) and (2).] Competition is the active form of freedom of initiative and freedom of trade. An essential feature of market economy and a must for economic progress. But if economic freedom (to undertake and to trade) is outside any constraints and has solid support provided by the basic rule of private law according to which the individual is allowed everything is not expressly forbidden by the law (for example, individuals cannot carry out economic activities upon which the state has reserved monopoly), competition is only acceptable if it is fair, namely if respects "honest practices and the general principle of good faith, in the interests of those involved, including respect for consumers' interests".  Professor, PhD, Faculty of Law, “Nicolae Titulescu” University of Bucharest (email: viorelros@asdpi.ro).  PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest (email: andreea.livadariu@rvsa.ro). 1 Augustin de Hipona (354-450), philosopher, theologian, bishop, doctor of the Church, is one of the four parents of Christian Church, alongside Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory the Great. 2. Freedom, an understood necessity? According to Blessed Augustine 1 , if no one asks what freedom is, we know, but if anyone asks us what it is, we do not know it anymore. Still, Augustine de Hipona wrote a lot about freedom and its limits, concluding that man does not have a complete power of choice, meaning that not everything that man does depends on free choice. Supporter of the principle of divine grace, he does not give up the principle of man's freedom of will, making a synthesis between affirmation of divine grace and assertion of liberty. Man has the power to choose between good or bad, but there is no perfect balance between freedom of choice and divine grace, which only Adam had it and which he destroyed by the original sin. However, will never decides without reason, without being attracted to a good that it perceives. But this perception does not lie in the absolute power of man; God is the one that determines either the external causes of perception or the inner light that acts upon the soul. Augustine de Hipona examined the individual's freedom in relation to divinity. Philosophers, trying to discuss it in layman's terms, of relationships between people and between people and states, define it negatively: freedom is a lack of any constraint. In other words, freedom means not being impeded to do what you want and to say what you want, to be in charge of what you do and what you do not do by your own will. Freedom requires self-determination without any external intervention and independent choice of behaviour. Jean-Jacques Rousseau also defines it as negative by saying that "freedom does not consist in the fact that people can do everything they want, but