In dealing with telecom operator and internet mergers in the late 1990s the European Commission adopted a pessimistic view of competition based on the then emerging theory of network effects. This paper takes a short and critical look at the Commission's use of network effects theory, and its...

In this paper we discuss some of the most important economic issues raised in European Commission vs. Microsoft (2004) concerning the market for work group servers. In our view, the most important economic issues relate to (a) foreclosure incentives and (b) innovation effects of the proposed...

The purpose of this paper is to represent in which way a stable and no negligible growth in demand can affect the level of sustainability of collusion. For the European Commission this assumption is seen as a factor that disincentives collusion and pushes to a competitive behavior. This fact...

Despite the adoption of the European Damages Directive and its transposition to national legal systems, a number of obstacles to antitrust damages actions in the EU still persist. Such obstacles stem from both substantial and procedural aspects. Information and data available to plaintiffs and...

On November 30, 2010, the European Commission announced that Google is under formal antitrust investigation with regard to an alleged abuse of dominance in the online search market. The main concern of the Commission is whether Google has manipulated its unpaid or “algorithmic” search...

This paper explores value of fairness as a goal of competition law. It contrasts the developments in the US, where non-economic goals are largely discarded by the prevailing antitrust thinking, with those in the EU and China, where the pursuit of fair competition has been explicitly acknowledged...

This paper examines the evolution of national competition (antitrust) policies and enforcement approaches vis-à-vis intellectual property rights (IPRs) and associated anti-competitive practices in major jurisdictions over the past several decades. It focuses especially on the underlying process...