Under EU competition law it is prohibited to conclude anti-competitive agreements. If found, such conduct warrants fines in the millions. How-ever, little guidance on what to consider restrictive practices are available from the relevant statute, referring the matter to case law. Here a pattern...

Undertakings may restrict competition by cooperating with their competitors or by interfering with their ability to compete. In both cases, their ultimate goal is to raise the price they charge for their products or services. Therefore, the main concern about both collusive and exclusionary...

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...

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,...

This paper aims at highlighting the Commission's approach towards the relation between sector specific regulation and general competition law, especially concerning energy markets and the road to Internal Market objective.We firstly present Trinko case, in order to focus on two crucial and...

While the Commission has stood its ground against political pressure to relax enforcement for the purpose of grooming European champions, that does not mean only economic welfare arguments have been accepted under competition law. Rather, over the years a pattern has emerged whereby, in the...

Based on an analysis of cartel prosecutions since 2007, this article assesses the way the European Commission has built up its fines in practice. The fines are compared with those imposed by the European Commission over the period from 1999 to 2006. The main findings are that, while fines have...