The best way to stop a company from breaking the law isn't to fine them, but to give their biggest competitor a legal head start.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Rivalrous Remedies
SSRN · 6568519
The Takeaway
We usually think that justice means the person who did the wrong thing must be punished directly by the state. However, the concept of 'rivalrous remedies' suggests that empowering a competitor is a far more effective way to deter misconduct than any fine. Instead of the government collecting a check, the law grants a strategic advantage to a rival, which creates a much more immediate and existential threat to the wrongdoer. This shift suggests that law works best when it stops acting like a policeman and starts acting like a market disruptor. It challenges the assumption that only the state can enforce the law, showing that a rival's greed can be a superior regulatory tool.
From the abstract
<p>Legal scholarship typically conceptualizes enforcement as operating directly on wrongdoers: either by enjoining them ex ante or by imposing monetary sanctions on them ex post. Yet across a wide range of legal fields, courts and lawmakers have long employed a different and largely untheorized instrument. Instead of sanctioning the wrongdoer directly, these doctrines deter misconduct by conferring a legal advantage on the wrongdoer’s rival: a business competitor, a litigation counterparty, or a