This paper explores the possibility of remedial intervention against the credit rating oligopoly under the competition rules. It is divided in six parts. Following an introduction, Part II provides an overview of the credit rating industry. Part III demonstrates that there is a possible economic...

This paper attempts to demonstrate that whilst parallel trade (also referred to as “grey market trade” in the United States, or as “arbitrage” in economic theory) in the European Union is subject to a remarkably favourable legal regime, the economic case supporting this approach remains...

The purpose of this working paper is to demonstrate that European competition lawyers – or at least most of them – do not need a shrink. More seriously, this paper underlines that a significant body of behavioral economics has already penetrated European Union (“EU”) competition law, in...

The purpose of the present article is to offer thoughts on the “Guidance Communication on the Commission’s Enforcement Priorities in Applying Article 82 of the EC Treaty” and, in particular, to review the requirements which the Commission must meet in Article 82 EC cases when it purports...

This paper lays down the rudiments of a descriptive theory of competition among the digital tech platforms known as “FANGs” (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google), amidst rising academic and policy polarization over the answer to what seems to be – at least at the formulation level – a...

The IEEE-SA updated patent policy and the Business Review Letter issued by the US DoJ have caused much discussion in the US (Sidak, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to assess whether a similarly lenient antitrust approach to Standard Setting Organizations’ (“SSOs”) rate setting policies...

In the last years, some Standard-Setting Organizations (“SSOs”) active in wireless communications have experimented new pricing principles for standard essential patents (“SEPs”). One of those experiments is the “SSPPU” rule. Under SSPPU, the licensing rates paid to owners of SEPs...

This paper argues that the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU in Huaweï v ZTE is of conservative craft. Huaweï v ZTE only extends by a razor-thin margin the zone of antitrust liability for patent owners. The Court appears reluctant to relax its traditional case-law that affirms...

This paper seeks to examine whether the legal standards underpinning the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) need to be revisited in light of the alleged specificities of “technology-enabled” markets. To this end, the paper is divided in...