The awarding of UMTS mobile licenses in France gave rise to a passionate debate as well as to a rather fluctuating history. A beauty contest with a predetermined price was preferred to an auction mechanism, as opposed to what was decided in most European countries, in particular United Kingdom...

The deployment of the so-called UMTS 3rd generation mobile networks is a step of vital importance for the promotion of competition in the telecommunications sector. The provision of high-traffic services presupposes that operators have access to the hertzian spectrum. The hertzian spectrum is a...

The 2014/23/EU Directive on concessions introduces a new definition for concession contracts and a new set of rules concerning contract design and contract modification. The paper seeks to determine the effects of the Directive on concessions concerning oil and gas or energy production, mainly...

This paper aims to offer some reflections on the legal relevance of general principles of EU public procurement law after the adoption of the 2014 package of substantive Directives on public procurement. It focusses on the field of concession contracts because one of the explicit justifications...

This article studies radioelectric spectrum auctions. The main auction designs of one and multiple objects are briefly presented, emphasizing the combinatorial clock auction for multiple objects which has properties that make it attractive when auctioning several blocks of the spectrum. This is...

The European Union is perhaps the most advanced area in terms of mobile telecommunications penetration. It is within this context that third generation (3G) spectrum licenses for mobile phones have become such an important issue in European regulation, finance, and politics. This article...

In this chapter we analyze the transposition of the Directive 2014/23 on the Award of Concession Contracts (“the Directive”) into Norwegian law. Norway is a different case compared with the rest of contributions part of this book because it is not an EU member. The Directive has become part...

This paper analyses, in a critical perspective, the evolution in accounting for ‘concession arrangements'. It is aimed to verify: if the new regulatory framework is sufficiently clear to allow a transparent and coherent accounting of such operations, which is its effect on public and private...