Liability For Antitrust Law Infringements Protection Of Ip Rights In Distribution

This book gathers international and national reports from across the globe on key questions in the field of antitrust and intellectual property. The first part discusses the allocation of liability for infringement of antitrust laws between corporations and individuals. The book explores the criminal or administrative sanctions available against corporations, companies or group of companies, and individuals, such as employees or directors. A detailed international report explores the major trends and challenges in this field and provides an excellent comparative study of this complex and challenging subject. The second part examines whether intellectual property rights are sufficiently protected to ensure a fair return on investments made by manufacturers and distributors. This question comes at a time where distribution is facing deep and radical changes with the Internet. To what extent this is an opportunity or a threat to the sustainability of distribution systems of differentiated and IP protected goods is the question. This book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world, all summarised and elaborated in an international report. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following a debate on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.

This book gathers international and national reports from across the globe on key questions in the field of antitrust and intellectual property. The first part discusses the allocation of liability for infringement of antitrust laws between corporations and individuals. The book explores the criminal or administrative sanctions available against corporations, companies or group of companies, and individuals, such as employees or directors. A detailed international report explores the major trends and challenges in this field and provides an excellent comparative study of this complex and challenging subject. The second part examines whether intellectual property rights are sufficiently protected to ensure a fair return on investments made by manufacturers and distributors. This question comes at a time where distribution is facing deep and radical changes with the Internet. To what extent this is an opportunity or a threat to the sustainability of distribution systems of differentiated and IP protected goods is the question. This book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world, all summarised and elaborated in an international report. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following a debate on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues. --

In enforcing EU competition law, the Commission employs a unique doctrine of parental antitrust liability: it imposes fines on the parent company of an infringing subsidiary in cases where the parent exercises decisive influence over the subsidiary's commercial policy. Critics of this contentious aspect of EU competition law believe that the doctrine is unfair, ineffective, obscure, disproportionate, contrary to due process, and based upon a dubious, if not extremely flimsy, justificatory foundation. Such criticism raises serious and unanswered questions about the legitimacy of the Commission's efforts to enforce competition law. Parental Liability in EU Competition Law: A Legitimacy-Focused Approach is the first monograph to be dedicated to this controversial topic. Written by Professor Peter Whelan, the book contends that, although the general concept of parental liability can be justified in principle, the current EU-level doctrine of parental antitrust liability in fact suffers from a distinct and problematic lack of legitimacy. More specifically, the said doctrine displays significant deficiencies with respect to effectiveness, fairness, and legality. Given this undesirable state of affairs, Parental Liability in EU Competition Law offers a fully-rationalised, reformulated approach to parental antitrust liability for EU competition law violations that is built around the notion of parental fault. That approach provides a solid normative account of how to impose parental antitrust liability in a manner that is theoretically robust, effective in practice, fair in substance, and legally sound.

This open access edited book captures the complexities and conflicts arising at the interface of intellectual property rights (IPR) and competition law. To do so, it discusses four specific themes: (a) policies governing functioning of standard setting organizations (SSOs), transparency and incentivising future innovation; (b) issue of royalties for standard essential patents (SEPs) and related disputes; (c) due process principles, procedural fairness and best practices in competition law; and (d) coherence of patent policies and consonance with competition law to support innovation in new technologies. Many countries have formulated policies and re-oriented their economies to foster technological innovation as it is seen as a major source of economic growth. At the same time, there have been tensions between patent laws and competition laws, despite the fact that both are intended to enhance consumer welfare. In this regard, licensing of SEPs has been debated extensively, although in most instances, innovators and implementers successfully negotiate licensing of SEPs. However, there have been instances where disagreements on royalty base and royalty rates, terms of licensing, bundling of patents in licenses, pooling of licenses have arisen, and this has resulted in a surge of litigation in various jurisdictions and also drawn the attention of competition/anti-trust regulators. Further, a lingering lack of consensus among scholars, industry experts and regulators regarding solutions and techniques that are apposite in these matters across jurisdictions has added to the confusion. This book looks at the processes adopted by the competition/anti-trust regulators to apply the principles of due process and procedural fairness in investigating abuse of dominance cases against innovators.

This handbook brings together an international roster of competition law scholars and practitioners to address the issue of sanctions in competition law from all angles. Covering nineteen jurisdictions around the world, the book analyzes the theoretical foundations and practice of sanctioning competition law infringements and, most importantly, cartels. Contributors include a range of experts drawing on criminal law, company law, labor law, human rights, and law and economics, to determine what sanctions are available as a matter of positive law against corporations and individuals, including fines and other criminal, administrative, and civil law sanctions; whether law enforcers are using these sanctions effectively; and if new sanctions – including individual sanctions – should be introduced.

This book gathers contributions from a broad range of jurisdictions, written by practitioners and academics alike, and offers an unparalleled comparative view of key issues in competition law, intellectual property and unfair competition law, with a specific focus on the use of personal data. The first part focuses on the role of competition law in shaping the digital economy. It discusses the use of personal data, the market power of platforms, the assessment of free services, and more broadly the responsibility of dominant companies in the smooth functioning of the digital economy. In turn, the second part sheds light on how the conduct of influencers, native advertising and the use of AI for marketing purposes can be controlled by the law, focusing on the use of personal data and the impact of behavioral advertising on consumers. In this regard, the book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European and other countries, all summarized and elaborated on in the form of two international reports. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.

This book gathers national and international reports from around the globe on key issues in the field of antitrust and intellectual property. Its first part discusses to what extent competition law should be concerned with differences in prices, terms and conditions, or quality that suppliers offer different purchasers. A detailed international report explores the major trends and challenges in this field and provides an excellent comparative study on this complex and challenging subject. In turn, the second part examines whether there should be legal restrictions on the ability of persons who claim, without sufficient justification, to hold IP rights that have been infringed on, to bring, or to threaten to bring, legal proceedings based on such claims against their competitors or others. In this regard, the book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world, all summarised and elaborated on in an international report. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following debates on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.