| dc.description.abstract | This thesis concentrates on standing to sue doctrine of the third party as a competitor, whose interests are adversely affected by an administrative action under the economic regulation, through a comparative vision between Taiwan and United States. An agency action might influence both directly regulated parties and indirectly regulated third parties. In order to invoke the courts’ power to review a government action, a person must establish standing to challenge that. However, it is slippery for courts to identify whether a third party, a competitor towards the direct regulated party, has standing to sue when he alleges his interests are affected by the administrative action.
In Taiwan, the administrative courts review if a party has standing to sue mainly by “theory of protective norm”. That is, legal rights or legal interests of a competitor are statutorily protected through the objective interpretation of relevant statutes by the courts. It seems like a tremendous flexible and extremely broad doctrine. Nonetheless, in practice, the courts have continuously held that the economic interests and competitive injury of the litigant are not entitled to bring an action because those are not legally protected.
In United States, according to the Administrative Procedure Act, a person whose interests are adversely affected or aggrieved by any decision are able to challenge the official action. Courts address the “injury in fact” test, the constitutional requirement, and the “zone of interests” test, the prudential requirement, to identify the standing of a litigant. To satisfy these two requirements of standing, the competitor must allege a direct personal injury which is fairly traceable to the defendant’’s action, likely to be redressed and his complaint fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked.
In conclusion, to base on the previous analysis and comparison, using theory of protective norm in a rigid way is not sufficient to determine whether the litigant has enforceable right or interests to against competitive injury in Taiwan. Therefore, this thesis attempts to propose several supplements when courts apply the theory.
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