In the last few years, the public enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC has been thoroughly transformed: the competition authorities of the EU Member States have become active enforcers within the European Competition Network, the European Commission has imposed more and higher fines than ever before, leniency has become a major instrument of cartel detection, and some Member States have introduced criminal penalties. The overall trend towards more and stronger enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC has also rekindled discussion on the old question of how to strike the right balance between efficient enforcement and adequate protection of the rights of the defence. This book brings together six essays which analyse from both a legal and an economic perspective the powers of investigation of the European Commission and the competition authorities of the Member States, and the corresponding procedural rights and guarantees, the use of settlements, the theory and practice of fines and of leniency, and the criminalization of European antitrust enforcement.

In recent years European Community (EC) competition law has come under fire. Continued criticism of all aspects of the means by which EC competition law is enforced has brought to light ineffectiveness of the present system. Consequently the European Commission has responded by issuing the "White Paper on Modernisation",which sets out its vision on the future of EC competition law. This new book takes a step back, and tries to understand the current challenges to EC competition policy by examining the origins of the Community's competition law system. In the first part of the book the author sketches the development of Community competition law enforcement between the European Economic Community, established in 1958, and the European Union of today. Taking this dynamic perspective on EC competition law, the second part of the book addresses topical problems of EC competition policy; the pertinent objectives, the institutional framework, the division of jurisdiction between the Community and Member States, and decentralised enforcement of Community law. Notably, the author's conclusions diverge considerably from the analysis found in the Commission White Paper on Modernisation. The author proposes various alternative solutions to the existing problems which, arguably, fit better within the overall constitutional development of the Community than the solutions offered by the Commission. The book will be of interest to competition lawyers as well as to all those interested in the constitutional development of the European Community.

Public procurement and competition law are both important fields of EU law and policy, intimately intertwined in the creation of the internal market. Hitherto their close connection has been noted, but not closely examined. This work is the most comprehensive attempt to date to explain the many ways in which these fields, often considered independent of one another, interact and overlap in the creation of the internal market. This process of convergence between competition and public procurement law is particularly apparent in the 2014 Directives on public procurement, which consolidate the principle of competition in terms very close to those advanced by the author in the first edition. This second edition builds upon this approach and continues to ask how competition law principles inform and condition public procurement rules, and whether the latter (in their revised form) are adequate to ensure that competition is not distorted. The second edition also deepens the analysis of the market behaviour of the public buyer from a competition perspective. Proceeding through a careful assessment of the general rules of competition and public procurement, the book constantly tests the efficacy of these rules against a standard of the proper functioning of undistorted competition in the market for public procurement. It also traces the increasing relevance of competition considerations in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and sets out criteria and recommendations to continue influencing the development of EU Economic Law.

The growing use of private labels in recent years has affected significantly the landscape of retail competition, with major retailers no longer being confined to their traditional role as purchasers and distributors of branded goods. By selling their own-label products within their outlets they are competing with their upstream brand suppliers for sales and shelf space. This unique relationship, and the continued strengthening of private labels, raises important questions as to their pro-competitive effects and possible negative effects.
This book provides an in-depth review of the range of competitive and intellectual property issues raised in connection with private brands in Europe and the US. It examines the development of private labels and their impact on retail competition, then moves on to focus on policy and questions the adequacy of current economic and legal analysis in light of the characteristics of own-label competition, and finally it presents a thorough evaluation of the legal issues in the field, including chapters on horizontal and vertical effects, dominance, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, copycat packaging and consumer welfare.
The book contains a collection of essays reflecting the debate on the impact of private labels upon competition, investment and innovation in the retail sector. The ideas and arguments underlying the articles have been developed through a series of seminars held in the Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy over the last three years. Participants in these seminars have included competition officials, law academics, practitioners and representatives from industry.

The Japanese government is becoming less involved in shaping industrial policy - but what does this imply for the openness of Japanese markets to foreign competition?;In an extensive study of "post-development" Japan, Ulrike Schaede argues that, contrary to what many have suggested, the reduced role of government regulation may not result in more open markets. Instead, as has happened throughout Japanese history, deregulation and the recession of the 1990s have once again led Japanese trade associations to assume important regulatory functions of their own. They do this through "self-regulation" - setting and enforcing the rules of trade for their industries, independent from the government. As a result, many Japanese markets are now effectively governed by incumbent firms, in particular in terms of structuring the distribution system. As the record of post-war antitrust enforcement reveals, Japan's antitrust system considers most activities of self-regulation, other than outright price-fixing, as legal.

This latest monograph by Professor Korah on the recent group exemption consists of a detailed and critical commentary on the technology transfer block exemption and guidelines of 2004, and of the case law of the ECJ and Commission on licensing and refusals to license, together with annotated copies of the regulation and guidelines. There is a substantial chapter on refusal to supply or license in the light of the recent case law under Article 82. It embraces many of the competition issues that may affect intellectual property rights. After a brief introduction, the work starts with short chapters on the free movement of goods and services, the status of the Commission's guidelines and the historically hostile attitude of the Commission under Article 81 towards licensing. It then launches into a detailed analysis of the regulation and the probable treatment of licences that do not fall within it. Throughout the book the author provides extensive analysis of policy and economics as well as comparison with US practice.

This book provides a comprehensive practitioner guide to the EU law of State aid, covering all relevant legislation, case law, and the dominant themes shaping EU State aid policy. It discusses the concept of State aid and its development in the European Union, as well as practical aspects such as procedures for notification to the European Commission, and enforcement in the European Court and national courts. It offers extensive coverage of specific sectors, including transport and shipbuilding, media and communications, energy and environmental protection, culture and heritage, and agriculture. The third edition is fully updated to cover the extensive legislative changes in this area, including the new General Block Exemption Regulation and De Minimis Regulation, horizontal aid guidelines, and sectoral guidelines for aviation, cinemas, agriculture, and fisheries; as well as State aid cases in the national courts, particularly the UK, and recent European Court jurisprudence. Accessible to competition lawyers and non-specialists, the book's clarity and concision make it an invaluable reference to this area of law.

The European Competition Law Annual 2004 is ninth in a series of volumes following the annual workshops on EU Competition Law and Policy held at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. The volume reproduces the materials of the roundtable debate that took place at the ninth edition of the workshop (11-12 June 2004), which examined the relationship between competition law and the regulation of (liberal) professions. The (liberal) professions and the rules governing their functioning have become of interest for EC competition law enforcement since the early nineties, making the object of a series of Commission decisions and judgments of the European courts. The subject has gained in importance in the perspective of the recent decentralisation of EC antitrust enforcement. The regulation of (liberal) professions is also a matter of increasing concern from the perspective of freedom of services in the internal market. The workshop participants - a group of senior representatives of the Commission and the national competition authorities of some Member States, reknown international academics and legal practitioners - discussed the economic, legal and political/institutional issues that arise in the relationship between competition law and the regulation of (liberal) professions.

This volume contains ten papers, by many prominent authors, examining antitrust issues of current interest. The first paper summarizes the other papers and presents original research on the meaning of consumer welfare and the sources of buyer power. The next five articles evaluate older antitrust cases to determine whether the decisions reached, the relief ordered, or both, enhanced consumer welfare. The seventh paper describes a new measure of efficiency that gives greater weight to consumer harm and applies it to a recent merger. The next paper explains a new way in which vertical foreclosure can enhance the market power of an upstream supplier. The ninth article refines an innovative technique for identifying substitutes among a set of differentiated products. The tenth paper confronts a contentious policy issue - the treatment of patent settlements in which the patent holder pays the challenger to exit the market - and concludes that they should be per se illegal.

The revised EC policy on the application of competition law to vertical agreements is an important developments in EC anti-trust. The block exemption regulation, which came into effect on 1 June 2000, and the accompanying policy changes are crucially important for companies doing business in the European Union. Whichever route a business chooses to get its products to market, it needs to understand the impact of the EC rules. This title provides a comprehensive and practical commentary on the changed rules. It contains the full text of the block exemption regulation, accompanying guidelines and other relevant Commission notices. Issues covered include: background to EC competition law and its application to vertical agreements; in-depth analysis of the provisions of the block exemption regulation; examination of how the rules apply to exclusive distribution; and selective distribution, franchising and agency agreements.

The objective(s) of Article 102 TFEU, what exactly makes a practice abusive and the standard of harm under Article 102 TFEU have not yet been settled. This lack of clarity creates uncertainty for businesses and, coupled with the current state of economics in this area, raises an important question of legitimacy. Using law and economic approaches, this book inquires into the possible objectives of Article 102 TFEU and proposes a modern approach to interpreting 'abuse'. In doing so, this book establishes an overarching concept of 'abuse' that conforms to the historical roots of the provision, to the text of the provision itself, and to modern economic thinking on unilateral conduct. This book therefore inquires into what Article 102 TFEU is about, what it can be about and what it should be about regarding both objectives and scope. The book demonstrates that the separation of exploitative abuse from exclusionary abuse is artificial and unsound. It examines the roots of Article 102 TFEU and the historical context of the adoption of the Treaty, the case law, policy and literature on exploitative abuses and, where relevant, on exclusionary abuses. The book investigates potential objectives, such as fairness and welfare, as well as the potential conflict between such objectives. Finally, it critically assesses the European Commission's modernisation of Article 102 TFEU, before proposing a reformed approach to 'abuse' which is centred on three necessary and sufficient conditions: exploitation, exclusion and a lack of an increase in efficiency.

Exploring obstacles to effective compensation of victims of competition infringements, this book categorises the types of victims harmed and the types of losses arisen from these infringements to identify to what extent there is a need for enhanced private competition law enforcement in the European Union (EU) and the best way to address this need. It shows that there is a genuine need for facilitating consumer damages actions and that consumer claims are the only claims that can be pursued in a collective redress action. In order to compensate consumers and overcome barriers to effective enforcement of their right to damages, it structures a collective redress action for consumers by considering the following elements: i. the formation of the group, ii. the type of representative party iii. funding mechanisms and iv. calculation and distribution of damages.

At the heart of the European Union is the establishment of a European market grounded in the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. The implementation of the free market has preoccupied European lawyers since the inception of the Union's predecessors. Throughout the Union's development, as obstacles to free movement have been challenged in the courts, the European Court of Justice has had to expand on the internal market provisions in the founding Treaties to create a body of law determining the scope and meaning of the EU protection of free movement. In doing so, the Court has often taken differing approaches across the different freedoms, leaving a body of law apparently lacking a coherent set of foundational principles. This book presents a critical analysis of the European Courts' jurisprudence on free movement, examining the Court's constitutional responsibility to articulate a coherent vision of the EU internal market. Through analysis of restrictions on free movement rights, it argues that four main drivers are distorting the system of the case law and its claims to coherence. The drivers reflect 'good' impulses (the protection of fundamental rights); avoidable habits (the proliferation of principles and conflicting lines of case law authority); inherent ambiguities (the unsettled purpose and objectives of the internal market); and broader systemic conditions (the structure of the Court and its decision-making processes). These dynamics cause problematic instances of case law fragmentation - which has substantive implications for citizens, businesses, and Member States participating in the internal market as well as reputational consequences for the Court of Justice and for the EU more generally. However, ultimately the Member States must take greater responsibility too: only they can ensure that the Court of Justice is properly structured and supported, enabling it to play its critical institutional part in the complex narrative of EU integration. Examining the judicial development of principles that define the scope of EU free movement law, this book argues that sustaining case law coherence is a vital constitutional responsibility of the Court of Justice. The idea of constitutional responsibility draws from the nature of the duties that a higher court owes to a constitutional text and to constitutional subjects. It is based on values of fairness, integrity, and imagination. A paradigm of case law coherence is less rigid, and therefore more realistic, than a benchmark of legal certainty. But it still takes seriously the Court's obligations as a high-level judicial institution bound by the rule of law. Judges can legitimately be expected - and obliged - to be aware of the public legal resource that they construct through the evolution of case law.

This book provides edited selections of primary source material in the intellectual history of competition policy from Adam Smith to the present day. Chapters include classical theories of competition, the U.S. founding era, classicism and neoclassicism, progressivism, the New Deal, structuralism, the Chicago School, and post-Chicago theories. Although the focus is largely on Anglo-American sources, there is also a chapter on European Ordoliberalism, an influential school of thought in post-War Europe. Each chapter begins with a brief essay by one of the editors pulling together the important themes from the period under consideration.

Both antitrust and intellectual property laws are intended to facilitate economic growth. Antitrust is meant to encourages competition of all kinds and intellectual property law should offer inventors and artists the correct incentives to develop new ideas and technologies, but the harsh reality is that antitrust and IP laws have wandered off this course.
In Creation without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation, Christina Bohannan and Herbert Hovenkamp analyze the current state of competition (antitrust) and intellectual property laws, and propose realistic reforms that will encourage innovation. As with antitrust and a reform process that aligned injury requirements in lawsuits with the incentive to compete, this book proposes similar reforms for patent and copyright law, and considers both the uses and limitations of antitrust as a vehicle for intellectual property law reform. This book considers how antitrust and IP law should engage practices that restrain rather than promote innovation, and covers the troubled topic of IP "misuse," which the authors suggest needs a broader reach but narrower remedies.
Bohannan and Hovenkamp also evaluate the uses and limits of antitrust to address a variety of practices in innovation intensive markets, including interconnection in networks, duties to deal, and internet neutrality. The book constructs a framework and rules for governing the "innovation commons," or the vast area that involves collaborative innovation. Finally, it considers ways to further competition in the licensing and distribution of IP rights, and offers several proposals for specific reforms, most of which can be instituted by the courts without the need for new legislation.

Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position as incompatible with the internal market. Its application in practice has been controversial with goals as diverse as the preservation of an undistorted competitive process, the protection of economic freedom, the maximisation of consumer welfare, social welfare, or economic efficiency all cited as possible or desirable objectives. These conflicting aims have raised complex questions as to how abuses can be assessed and how a dominant position should be defined.
This book addresses the conceptual problems underlying the tests to be applied under Article 102 in light of the objectives of EU competition law. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book covers all the main issues relating to Article 102, including its objectives, its relationship with other principles and provisions of EU law, the criteria for the assessment of individual abusive practices, and the definition of dominance. It provides an in-depth doctrinal and normative commentary of the case law with the aim of establishing an intellectually robust and practically workable analytical framework for abuse of dominance.

One of the most contentious and high-profile aspects of EU competition law and policy has been the regulation of those serious competition or antitrust violations now often referred to as 'hard core cartels'. Such cartel activity typically involves large and powerful corporate producers and traders operating across Europe and beyond, and comprise practices such as price fixing, bid rigging, market sharing, and limiting production in order to ensure 'market stability' and maintain and increase profits. There is little disagreement now, in terms of competition theory and policy at both international and national levels, regarding the damaging effect of such trading practices on public and consumer interests, and such cartels have been subject to increasing condemnation in the legal process of regulating and protecting competition.
Regulating Cartels in Europe provides critical evaluation of the way in which European-level regulation has evolved to deal with the activities of such anti-competitive business cartels. They trace the historical development of cartel regulation in Europe, comparing the more pragmatic and empirical approached favored in Europe with the more dogmatic and uncompromising American policy on cartels. In particular, the work considers critically the move towards the use of fully fledged criminal proceedings in this area of legal control, examining evolving aspects of enforcement policy such as the use of leniency programs and the deployment of a range of criminal law and other sanctions.
This new edition of the work covers emerging themes and arguments in the discipline, including the judicial review of decisions against cartels, the criminological and legal basis of the criminalization of cartel conduct, and the range and effectiveness of sanctions used in response to cartel activity.

A remarkable reversal in popular satisfaction with antitrust law has occurred: Germany--once the classic land of cartels--now enforces an antitrust law vigorously and subject to little meaningful opposition, while the United States--itself the home of antitrust law--enforces its antitrust law erratically and against significant criticism. Whatever may be the precise measure of support in each country for antitrust laws, even the most cursory observation discloses a criticism of antitrust law in the United States not matched in kind or degree in the Federal Republic of Germany. This work investigates aspects of some of the many possible explanations--legal, social, and economic--for this remarkable turnaround. It considers perhaps the most obvious question: How do the two antitrust laws differ? In partial answer, it suggests that certain principal criticisms of American antitrust law reflect dissatisfaction as much with the legal methods by which that law is applied as with the law itself. German cartel law, Maxeiner suggests, utilizes different legal methods which avoid or mitigate many of the problems encountered in American antitrust law.

This book gathers national and international reports from around the globe on key issues in the field of antitrust and intellectual property. Its first part discusses to what extent competition law should be concerned with differences in prices, terms and conditions, or quality that suppliers offer different purchasers. A detailed international report explores the major trends and challenges in this field and provides an excellent comparative study on this complex and challenging subject. In turn, the second part examines whether there should be legal restrictions on the ability of persons who claim, without sufficient justification, to hold IP rights that have been infringed on, to bring, or to threaten to bring, legal proceedings based on such claims against their competitors or others. In this regard, the book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world, all summarised and elaborated on in an international report. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following debates on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.

This work considers in detail the EU law and case law affecting various types of "horizontal" agreements - those between undertakings operating at the same level of the manufacturing, supply or retail chain. It derives from a section in the looseleaf Law of the EU (Vaughan & Robertson, eds), and is made available here for the benefit of those who don't subscribe to the looseleaf. Part I analyses so-called 'object'-type agreements which have always been a primary focus of anti-trust enforcement agencies and are likely to infringe Article 81 EC. Part II examines so-called 'co-operation' agreements which either do not infringe Article 81(1) EC at all, or, if they do create an appreciable restriction on competition within the meaning of that provision, may nevertheless benefit from the exception set out in Article 81(3). The way in which the European Commission treats these types of agreements has changed recently and reflects a much less form-based, and more fact-specific, economics-based approach. The texts of relevant Commission Guidelines on the application of the relevant EC Treaty articles, in particular on specialisation and research and development agreements are included in appendix.

This book examines reforms in company and takeover law, crucial to modern business and economics. Reform activity is underway in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and most other member States of the European Union. In addition, the EU is developing its own rules and reform plans. The European 13th directive was enacted in December 2003- this requires modifications of member State takeover law. The European Commission has outlined the company law action plan which will lead to important directives from 2004 to 2010. This book is the first to deal comprehensively with both the 13th directive and the EU company law action plan, providing commentary on the action plan, and critically assessing what the future may hold. The takeover law provisions in the 13th directive, including the 'break-through' rule and the controversial level playing field for takeover activities amongst European member states and between them and the United States are examined. The contributions also address a wide range of topical issues including corporate disclosure, board structure, the role of non-executive and supervisory directors, remuneration of directors, responsibility of the management and the board, personal liability of board members, auditors, and conflicts of interest. The company law action plan and the two reports of the High Level Group of Company Law Experts upon which the plan was based are reproduced in full in a useful annex.