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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.
Previous editions published : 2001 (4th), 1993 (3rd), 1989 (2nd), and 1985 (1st).
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.
Information Exchange Between Competitors in EU Competition Law Martin Gassler Competing firms often exchange information in order to make more informed market decisions which can help to overcome market inefficiencies. However, an abundance of legal and economic research as well as case law has shown that information exchange may also enable firms to engage in collusion more readily and sustain it longer. This book is the first to concentrate on this challenging topic of EU competition law in such depth. It focuses on ‘pure’ information exchanges – exchanges that are not ancillary to a wider pro-competitive or anticompetitive conduct – and thoroughly explains the characteristics of such information exchanges, their pro-competitive and anticompetitive effects and discusses all the relevant legal aspects for their assessment. The author provides a robust analytical framework for assessing information exchanges under Article 101 TFEU, focusing on the risk of collusive outcomes and what types of information exchange are particularly harmful. With detailed attention to the leading cases on information exchange, the analysis examines the most important aspects for assessing information exchange between competitors, in particular: the concept of a concerted practice; the concepts of a restriction by object and effect, including their similarities and differences; the importance of evidentiary issues; the issue of signalling via advance public announcements; factors that facilitate collusion; efficiencies of information exchange, including market transparency; the legal challenges of tackling mere parallel conduct; facilitative practices in the Commission Guidelines, including the Horizontal Cooperation Guidelines; and safe harbours for certain types of information exchange. The book offers clear guidance on how to identify and thus distinguish information exchange that restricts competition by its object and information exchange that restricts competition (only) by its effects. It offers practical solutions to some of the perceived issues when assessing information exchanges. With its wealth of analysis not available from other sources, this concise yet comprehensive review of a much-debated topic in competition law offers clear guidance for practitioners in assessing the issues surrounding information exchange. The book will also be welcomed by competition law academics, competition lawyers and competition authority officials throughout Europe.
The vast majority of the countries in the world are developing countries—there are only thirty-four OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries—and yet there is a serious dearth of attention to developing countries in the international and comparative law scholarship, which has been preoccupied with the United States and the European Union. Competition Law and Development investigates whether or not the competition law and policy transplanted from Europe and the United States can be successfully implemented in the developing world or whether the developing-world experience suggests a need for a different analytical framework. The political and economic environment of developing countries often differs significantly from that of developed countries in ways that may have serious implications for competition law enforcement. The need to devote greater attention to developing countries is also justified by the changing global economic reality in which developing countries—especially China, India, and Brazil—have emerged as economic powerhouses. Together with Russia, the so-called BRIC countries have accounted for thirty percent of global economic growth since the term was coined in 2001. In this sense, developing countries deserve more attention not because of any justifiable differences from developed countries in competition law enforcement, either in theoretical or practical terms, but because of their sheer economic heft. This book, the second in the Global Competition Law and Economics series, provides a number of viewpoints of what competition law and policy mean both in theory and practice in a development context.
This book examines the treatment of fdelity rebates as one of the most controversial topics in EU competition law. The controversy arose from the lack of clarity as to how to distinguish between rebates that constitute a legitimate business practice and those that might have anticompetitive e?ects, as the same type of rebates could be pro-competitive or anticompetitive depending on their e?ects on competition. This book clarifes the appropriate treatment of fdelity rebates under EU competition law by o?ering original insights on the way in which abusive rebates should be identifed, taking into account the wealth of EU case law in this area, the economics' literature and the perspective of US antitrust law. The critical discussion on the case law is centred on the idea as to whether the as efcient competitor (AEC) test is an important part of the assessment of fdelity rebates and in which circumstances it could be used as one tool among others. The analysis treats such issues and topics as the following: – What motivated the EU Courts to treat fdelity rebates as illegal ‘by object'? – Why has this case law drawn so much criticism from academics and other commentators? – What can we learn from the economic theories of exclusive dealing and fdelity rebates, and whether the strict approach of the Courts can be supported by economic empirical studies? – What is the meaning attached to the notion of an ‘e?ects-based' approach as an expression of the reform of Article 102? – Why is the controversy regarding the treatment of fdelity rebates still a live issue after the Intel and the Post Danmark II judgments? – In which circumstances the price-cost test can be used as a reliable tool to distinguish between anticompetitive and pro-competitive fdelity rebates? – Can we evaluate the e?ect of fdelity rebates without necessarily carrying out a price-cost test? – Can we consider the AEC test as a single unifying test for all types of exclusionary abuses? – What can we learn about the application of the AEC test in fdelity rebate cases from the recent US case law? A concluding chapter provides an original perspective and also policy recommendations on how the abusive character of fdelity rebates should be assessed including an appropriate legal test that is administrable, creates predictability and legal certainty and minimises the risk of errors and the cost of those mistakes. This book takes a giant step towards improving the understanding of the legal treatment of fdelity rebates and understanding as to whether the treatment of fdelity rebates could be e?ects-based, without necessarily carrying out an AEC test. It will also contribute signifcantly to the practical work of enforcement agencies, courts and private entities and their advisors. book's parallel study of US and EU competition law.
The authors describes the potential scope and application of the various legal provisions which regulate competition in the UK. This book also examines the results of the convergence of UK and EC law with regard to competition in business.
This volume explores the promise and limitations of competitive market dynamics, looking at the threats to competition - cartels, agreements, monopolies, and mergers - and the laws in place across the US and European Union to safeguard the process of competition.
All are agreed that the digital economy contributes to a dynamic evolution of markets and competition. Nonetheless, concerns are increasingly raised about the market dominance of a few key players. Because these companies hold the power to drive rivals out of business, regulators have begun to seek scope for competition enforcement in cases where companies claim that withholding data is needed to satisfy customers and cut costs. This book is the first focus on how competition law enforcement tools can be applied to refusals of dominant firms to give access data on online platforms such as search engines, social networks, and e-commerce platforms – commonly referred to as the ‘gatekeepers’ of the Internet. The question arises whether the denial of a dominant firm to grant competitors access to its data could constitute a ‘refusal to deal’ and lead to competition law liability under the so-called ‘essential facilities doctrine', according to which firms need access to shared knowledge in order to be able to compete. A possible duty to share data with rivals also brings to the forefront the interaction of competition law with data protection legislation considering that the required information may include personal data of individuals. Building on the refusal to deal concept, and using a multidisciplinary approach, the analysis covers such issues and topics as the following: – data portability; – interoperability; – data as a competitive advantage or entry barrier in digital markets; – market definition and dominance with respect to data; – disruptive versus sustaining innovation; – role of intellectual property regimes; – economic trade-off in essential facilities cases; – relationship of competition enforcement with data protection law and – data-related competition concerns in merger cases. The author draws on a wealth of relevant material, including EU and US decision-making practice, case law, and policy documents, as well as economic and empirical literature on the link between competition and innovation. The book concludes with a proposed framework for the application of the essential facilities doctrine to potential forms of abuse of dominance relating to data. In addition, it makes suggestions as to how data protection interests can be integrated into competition policy. An invaluable contribution to ongoing academic and policy discussions about how data-related competition concerns should be addressed under competition law, the analysis clearly demonstrates how existing competition tools for market definition and assessment of dominance can be applied to online platforms. It will be of immeasurable value to the many jurists, business persons, and academics concerned with this very timely subject.