The Consistent Application Of Eu Competition Law

In recent years, there has been a decentralisation of the enforcement of the EU competition law provisions, Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Consequently, the national application of these provisions has become increasingly more common across the European Union. This national application poses various challenges for those concerned about the consistent application of EU competition law. This edited collection provides an in-depth analysis of the most important limitations of, and the challenges concerning, the applicability of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU at national level. Divided into five parts, the book starts out by examining how the consistent enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU operates as a general EU competition policy. It then discusses several recent landmark cases of the European Court of Justice on Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, before proceeding to analyse certain additional, unique jurisdictional challenges to the uniform application of the EU competition law provisions. Subsequently, it focuses on one of the most important instruments that can help to achieve the uniform application of EU competition law in cases handled by the national courts: preliminary rulings. Finally, it provides selective examples of how Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are effectively applied at national level, thereby providing additional input into how problematic the issue of consistent application of EU competition law is in practice.

By their nature, remedies are central to competition law enforcement and represent the yardstick against which the efficiency of the overall system can be measured. Yet very rarely have remedies been treated in a horizontal and comprehensive manner from the combined perspectives of substance, process and policy. The present volume, developed in partnership with the College of Europe’s Global Competition Law Centre (GCLC), provides coherent, practical, and authoritative commentaries by leading experts from the GCLC’s incomparable network. The contributions – originally presented at the 2019 GCLC annual conference – examine remedies to assess the overall effectiveness of competition law enforcement in merger, antitrust and State aid matters. The overall topic is presented under five headings: objectives and limitations of remedies; types of remedies in competition law enforcement; implementation and process; ex post assessment of remedies and policy lessons; and national and international approaches. The high-profile and wide-ranging group of authors includes the Director-General of the European Commission’s competition department, lawyers from major international firms, and well-known economists and academics specialising in competition law. With a sharp focus on how to make competition rules work well in today’s digital environment, this systematic and coherent analysis illuminates an issue that we need to fully grasp and understand in order to make sense of competition policy, law and enforcement in the years and decades to come.

This book comprises a set of papers that were prepared for and delivered at the Global Competition Law Centre's Annual Conference "Modernisation and Enlargement: Two Major Challenges for EC Competition Law". The book presents an analysis of the new Regulation 1/2003 on the implementation of the competition rules laid down in Article 81 and 82 of the Treaty. This new Regulation represents a cultural revolution for EC competition lawyers, who were accustomed to notifying agreements in order to obtain some legal certainty for their clients. Modernisation opens up a brand new world where corporations and their lawyers will be asked to self-assess the validity of their agreements under EC competition law. The direct effect given to Article 81(3) will also stimulate implementation at the national level, including actions in national courts, although several procedural issues may impede private actions in courts. Amongc its other features, Regulation 1/2003 also creates a European Competition Network (ECN), which provides an institutional focus for cooperation between the NCAs and the Commission, as well as among the NCAs themselves. Enlargement of the European Union was one of the factors, which contributed to the adoption of Regulation 1/2003. Enlargement will expand the geographical scope of application of EC competition rules, but it will also create many important challenges. The NCAs of the new Member States are relatively new organisations, which in some cases lack the expertise and resources to pursue a credible enforcement agenda. These Member States are, however, willing to take on those challenges and, though a period of adaptation will be needed, there are no reasons why they should be unable to progressively develop a successful competition policy. Already, some agencies (e.g., in Hungary or Poland) have developed a credible enforcement record. This book is invaluable for all EU competition lawyers.

This new Sixth Edition of a major work by the well-known competition law team at Van Bael & Bellis in Brussels brings the book up to date to take account of the many developments in the case law and relevant legislation that have occurred since the Fifth Edition in 2010. The authors have also taken the opportunity to write a much-extended chapter on private enforcement and a dedicated section on competition law in the pharmaceutical sector. As one would expect, the new edition continues to meet the challenge for businesses and their counsel, providing a thoroughly practical guide to the application of the EU competition rules. The critical commentary cuts through the theoretical underpinnings of EU competition law to expose its actual impact on business. In this comprehensive new edition, the authors examine such notable developments as the following: important rulings concerning the concept of a restriction by object under Article 101; the extensive case law in the field of cartels, including in relation to cartel facilitation and price signalling; important Article 102 rulings concerning pricing and exclusivity, including the Post Danmark and Intel judgments, as well as standard essential patents; the current block exemption and guidelines applicable to vertical agreements, including those applicable to the motor vehicle sector; developments concerning online distribution, including the Pierre Fabre and Coty rulings; the current guidelines and block exemptions in the field of horizontal cooperation, including the treatment of information exchange; the evolution of EU merger control, including court defeats suffered by the Commission and the case law on procedural infringements; the burgeoning case law related to pharmaceuticals, including concerning reverse payment settlements; the current technology transfer guidelines and block exemption; procedural developments, including in relation to the right to privacy, access to file, parental liability, fining methodology, inability to pay and hybrid settlements; the implementation of the Damages Directive and the first interpretative rulings. As a comprehensive, up-to-date and above all practical analysis of the EU competition rules as developed by the Commission and EU Courts, this authoritative new edition of a classic work stands alone. Like its predecessors, it will be of immeasurable value to both business persons and their legal advisers.

This updated second edition explains EU competition law by presenting the relevant legal provisions together with carefully selected case extracts pertaining to those provisions. The book’s unique structure enables users to quickly locate information on procedural and substantive aspects of competition law. Containing an article by article overview of EU competition law jurisprudence and concise selected extracts from judgments in key cases, this book serves as an easy to navigate resource for practitioners, academics and competition authorities themselves.

One risks to drown in the flood of ever more regulatory texts, judgments, books and articles on European competition law. The Sourcebook on EU Competition Law brings some order to this subject. It combines the advantages of a practical one-volume overview of the law as it stands with an extensive bibliography which puts the reader on the right track towards in-depth research. The Sourcebook on EU Competition Law offers: (a) a full-text collection of EU documents on competition law: core Articles of the post-Lisbon Treaties, relevant Protocols, secondary legislation, Commission notices and communications; (b) excerpts of relevant judgments of the General Court and the European Court of Justice; (c) an extensive bibliography with books, articles and overviews of case law in several EU languages; and (d) notification forms, brought together in a separate section for easy reference. The Sourcebook on EU Competition Law covers all areas of competition law: restrictive practices, abuse of dominant position, merger control, state aid and services of general economic interest. The book’s structure allows the reader to distinguish easily between the essential provisions and the implementing measures.

EU competition law plays a central role in the process of European integration both as a multifaceted tool for creating and policing the internal market as well as in organising national markets. Yet as a consequence of this role it is also subject to increasingly complex demands, a proliferation of (sectoral) regimes, and multiple objectives at both an EU and national level. This profligacy entails risks of fragmentation and divergence - which could jeopardise the proper functioning of the internal market. In this examination of EU competition law, Wolf Sauter discusses three main issues: (i) what degree of coherence exists in EU competition law; (ii) how this coherence can be explained, particularly in the broader context of integration by EU law; and (iii) how it contributes to the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU competition law. Specific focus is placed on antitrust, while mergers, state aid control, as well as the sectoral regimes for energy and electronic communications are also examined. In addition the book also charts the history and framework of these competition regimes that jointly constitute EU competition law, defining both its objectives and limitations.

A critical examination of the establishment and evolution of European competition law and policy, this volume unveils the history of European economic, and political, integration through a study of the foundations and development of its antitrust law.