Antitrust and competition law represent a pervasive public policy favoring open markets, competition (without favoring or harming individual competitors) and the resulting application of the law of comparative advantage.

In outsourcing, antitrust principles are relevant first to joint ventures and secondarily to long-term services contracts that restrict the ability of an enterprise customer to obtain competitive services from another provider. Exclusivity provisions in outsourcing contracts should be reviewed for compliance with antitrust principles.