The duration of appellate court proceedings is an important determinant of the efficiency of a court system. We use data of 234 firm groups that participated in 63 cartels convicted by the European Commission between 2000 and 2012 to investigate the determinants of the duration of the subsequent...

Mit der Umsetzung der 7. Novelle des Gesetzes gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (GWB) wurde im Jahr 2005 die Ausnahmeregelung des sog. Ministerkartells nach § 8 GWB ersatzlos gestrichen. Ähnlich dem noch bestehenden Instrument der Ministererlaubnis für Fusionen nach § 42 GWB konnte bis dahin...

The European Commission has proposed a new regulatory tool for the governance of digital markets. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) intents to limit the market behavior of so-called gatekeeper companies to ensure contestable and fair digital markets. We review the provisions of the DMA both from a...

The protection of a "system of undistorted competition" within the internal market is one of the core elements of EU law that institutionalizes economic integration. The addressees of the prohibitions regarding restraints of competition such as Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are "undertakings". Hence...

We analyze horizontal mergers when the acquirer holds a passive partial ownership stake (PPO) in the target firm prior to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing...

The Intercontinental Exchange's current attempted acquisition of NYSE-Euronext is the third takeover proposal in as many years. In this article the two previous attempts are reviewed and lessons are drawn from an antitrust and competition policy perspective concerning the evolving competitive...