The Future of the Court of Justice in EU Competition Law - New Role and Responsibilities

This paper seeks to offer perspectives of the future role of the upper EU Court in competition law matters. It argues first that due to several institutional, substantive and procedural idiosyncracies, the Court's rule-making function will gain further importance. The raft of recent preliminary references that landed before the Court in X BV, VEBIC, Tele2 Polska, Pierre Fabre Dermocosmétiques, FAPL and Pfleiderer brings support to this prediction. In turn, the paper argues that with this role, come the heightened responsibility of setting the 'right' competition law standard. Given the lack of benchmark to distinguish what makes good and bad law, the paper offers thoughts on the necessity to set 'consistent' competition law standards, and explores several facets of rule-making consistency