The first prong of Article 82 of the EC Treaty, which prohibits abuses of a dominant position, requires, prior to the identification of abusive behaviour, evidence that the firm under scrutiny enjoys a dominant position. Surprisingly, this issue seems to be sometimes overlooked. Enforcers,...

Price discrimination is one of the most complex areas of EC competition law. There are several reasons for this. First, the concept of price discrimination covers many different practices (discounts and rebates, tying, selective price cuts, discriminatory input prices set by...

Many competition lawyers and economists argue that the prime of objective of competition law regimes is to promote economic efficiency. Yet, few of these regimes define what should be understood by economic efficiency. For instance, although this concept is referred to in an increasingly larger...

This paper seeks to draw some insights from the landmark Supreme Court judgment in Trinko with a view to enlightening the current debate taking place in the EU over the proper scope of application of Article 82. Trinko is a particularly relevant judgment for EC competition lawyers since it...

The development of sound regulatory regimes, including institutions, norms and processes, is critical to ensure the effective and sustainable delivery of infrastructure services, promote private participation in such services, and facilitate workable competition in such services. In order to...

European Community law has played a pivotal role in opening to competition economic sectors previously under the control of public monopolies. As with other sectors such as telecommunications, air transport, electricity, gas, and rail, the postal sector has succumbed to the wave of...

This paper seeks to shed some light both on how economy-wide and infrastructure or sector-specific components of the regulatory framework should be designed and on what the respective roles of such components should be to maximize the efficiency of economic regulation in telecommunications. It...

This paper reviews the various areas of tension between competition and environmental protection. It examines the compatibility with EC competition rules of the environmental agreements, certain behaviours of dominant undertakings carrying out environmental activities, the exclusive rights...

This paper provides a short overview of the regulatory challenges created by multi-utilities, i.e. companies involved in more than one utility sector. It discusses whether the sector-specific regulatory arrangements traditionally adopted by governments to regulate utilities offer a satisfactory...

This paper seeks to study the institutional aspects of the regulatory reforms undertaken in the telecommunications sector in the European Union. It discusses the core functions of the telecommunications regulatory authorities established by the Member States, as prescribed by EU law, as well as...