There is a large amount of legal and economic literature on the fining policy of the European Commission for breaches of EU competition law. This paper takes a quantitative approach as it analyses the factors that have been considered by the Commission in establishing the level of the fine...

In November 2011 Sweden abolished the uniform national electricity price and introduced separate price zones. This was the result of an antitrust settlement between the Commission and the Swedish network operator, which was accused of discriminating between domestic and export electricity...

We study antitrust enforcement in which the fine must obey four legal principles: punishments should fit the crime, proportionality, bankruptcy considerations, and minimum fines. We integrate these legal principles into an infinitely-repeated oligopoly model. Bankruptcy considerations ensure...

Whereas the EU's internal market rules govern market access and public intervention, its competition rules are concerned with the market conduct of private parties. When do the competition rules apply to healthcare? In principle the scope for application of the competition rules to the...

This paper explores how EU competition law enforcement might be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each section of this paper reviews how various components of EU competition law are impacted. The paper evaluates the state of play and, where relevant, it makes policy proposals for how...

In the pharmaceuticals sector there is an inherent tension between intellectual property rights and antitrust. This paper examines this tension over the past 10 years since modernisation of EU competition law. It looks at three types of problems: (i) restrictions on parallel imports; (ii) abuse...

In this paper we set out the welfare economics based case for imposing cartel penalties on the cartel overcharge rather than on the more conventional bases of revenue or profits (illegal gains). To do this we undertake a systematic comparison of a penalty based on the cartel overcharge with...

Online advertising is what funds free online content. Since its birth in the 1990’s, it has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry. At the core of this industry lies the ability to identify and track users through various technical means, such as web cookies. Online tracking for...

We analyze the effectiveness of antitrust regulation in a repeated oligopoly model in which both fines and detection probabilities depend on the cartel price. Such fines are closer to actual guidelines than the commonly assumed fixed fines. Under a constant detection probability, we confirm the...

We study antitrust enforcement in which the fine must obey four legal principles: punishments should fit the crime, proportionality, bankruptcy considerations, and minimum fines. We integrate these legal principles into an infinitely-repeated oligopoly model, where bankruptcy considerations...