The Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA) has to date held fi ve international conferences. The fi rst conference, organised in 2004 in Florence, was devoted to the ‘Evolution of European Competition Law’. The second conference in Paris in 2006 addressed the relationship of ‘Economic Theory and Competition Law’. A third conference, organised in Zurich in 2008, dealt with the ‘Development of Competition Law’. ‘More Common Ground for International Competition Law’ was the topic of the fourth conference convened in 2009 in Washington, D.C. These conferences revealed a need for further discussion on the normative foundations of Competition Law: What are the goals of Competition Law? What is the relationship between the law and economic considerations? Does the law indicate that competition as a process ought to be furthered, and as far as this is the case, how does this goal relate to desired outcomes of competition such as an enhancement of welfare and distributional fairness? The board of ASCOLA deemed it necessary to deepen the discussion on these issues and decided to devote a conference to the ‘Goals of Competition Law’. The conference took place in Bonn from 27–29 May 2010. This volume contains the contributions to this fi fth international conference. The conference was hosted by the newly founded Center for Advanced Studies in Law and Economics (CASTLE) at the University of Bonn. A distinguished scholar from the fi eld of Law and Economics and current President of the American Law and Economics Association, Louis Kaplow from Harvard University, gave the inaugural speech to open the Center and the Conference. This contribution on the choice of welfare standards in competition law introduces the present volume.