The Emerging Contribution of Director Disqualification in UK Competition Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 283-310
Author(s):  
Peter Whelan
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Enforcement Mechanism ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Normative Role ◽  
Competition Enforcement

Peter Whelan assesses a developing and increasingly significant enforcement tool in the UK competition authority’s armoury in Chapter 11. In it, Whelan notes that the enforcement of UK competition law is deterrence-focused and comprises both criminal and non-criminal (i.e. civil/administrative) elements. The chapter concentrates on the non-criminal enforcement apparatus that has been developed over the last twenty years. More specifically, it critically evaluates a particular enforcement mechanism that has been gaining increasing importance throughout the recent development of UK competition enforcement practice: the use of director disqualification. It first establishes the normative role of director disqualification in the UK’s armoury of non-criminal antitrust sanctions (i.e. its complementing of the deterrent function of corporate antitrust fines), following which it highlights their potential for performing this role effectively. It then outlines the legal basis for the use of director disqualification within the UK and evaluates the policy and enforcement practice to date with respect to such orders, before proceeding to outline some of the insights that the UK director disqualification regime can provide to other jurisdictions. Ultimately it concludes that, on the basis of the promising, albeit nascent, UK experience to date, director disqualification should be seriously considered by jurisdictions that wish to operate a robust competition law enforcement regime.

Competition law and digital ecosystems: Learning to walk before we run

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic Jenny
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
Competitive Strategies ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Competition Analysis ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Platforms And Ecosystems ◽  
Traditional Competition

Abstract The paper analyzes the challenges faced by competition authorities with respect to the digital sector. Borrowing insights from the business policy literature and from the economic literature, the paper first analyzes the specificities of digital firms (multi-sided platforms and ecosystems) with respect to their development and competitive strategies. Building on this foundation the paper explores some of the challenges of applying traditional competition analysis to competition in the business sector. We then discuss a number of issues relevant to competition law enforcement in the digital sector starting with the role of data, competition within ecosystems and between ecosystems, consumer biases, and the role of gatekeepers. We conclude with a research agenda for economists and competition authorities.

Part I EU Competition Law Private Enforcement and the Antitrust Damages Directive, 2 Promotion and Harmonization of Antitrust Damages Claims by Directive 2014/104/EU?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodger Barry ◽  
Ferro Miguel Sousa ◽  
Marcos Francisco
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Private Enforcement ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Member States ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Eu Competition Law

This chapter explains the contents and goals of the Antitrust Damages Directive (Directive 2014/104/EU), the corollary of the EU’s policy towards the promotion and facilitation of private enforcement of competition law. It first traces the evolution in EU competition law enforcement and policy that led to the adoption of the Directive before considering the goals of the Directive in more detail, namely to provide rules for the effective compensation of victims of antitrust infringements and to harmonize some rules concerning damages claims. It then examines the Directive’s legal basis under EU Law as well as substantive provisions, including those relating to compensatory principles, quantification of harm, and consensual dispute resolution. The chapter goes on to highlight neglected issues, limitations, and inherent biases regarding the scope and nature of the Directive’s rules and concludes with an analysis of issues arising from implementation of the Directive in Member States.

4. What is the optimal level of enforcement?

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Ariel Ezrachi
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Optimal Level ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Economic Understanding ◽  
Competitive Activities

‘What is the optimal level of enforcement?’ focuses on competition law enforcement. All competition jurisdictions acknowledge the central and crucial role of economic analysis in shaping competition prosecution. Greater economic understanding has improved the structure of competition law through legal presumptions and thresholds, enforcement guidelines, and a greater understanding of the gravity and consequences of anti-competitive activities. Indeed, there has been an ever-increasing ‘economization’ of antitrust, as more jurisdictions rely on economic analysis to determine whether intervention is needed. When markets work well, competition enforcers are better off adopting a ‘laissez-faire’ approach (leaving the market to take its own course). Distinguishing pro-competitive activities from anti-competitive activities poses a challenge.

6 Industrial Policy and Competition Law Enforcement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Thomas K
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Government Planning ◽  
National Champions ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the role of industrial policy in developing countries. On the one hand, industrial policy is arguably the antithesis of competition law and policy. Industrial policy substitutes government planning for competition and is vehemently opposed if not maligned by adherents of free market economics. Industrial policy as practiced in some countries such as Japan and Korea have entailed government-organized cartels and the grooming of national champions, both of which are direct affronts to the notion of competition. On the other hand, to the defenders of industrial policy, it has successfully lifted a number of Asian countries out of poverty and turned them into industrial and technological powerhouses. However, even the extent to which the success of these economies can be attributed to industrial policy is highly contested. There are hence two layers to the controversy. The first is whether industrial policy worked at all. The second is even if it did, whether a growth strategy relying on competition is superior to industrial policy, and if not, how competition law enforcement should accommodate industrial policy.

Skanska: are jurisdiction challenges now an impossible undertaking?

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Andrew Leitch
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Member State ◽  
National Court ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Eu Competition Law ◽  
Industrial Solutions

Claimants in private damages actions following on from European Commission cartel decisions are often faced with a choice of jurisdiction in which to pursue their claims. However, seising jurisdiction in the national court of a desired Member State can require the claim to be pursued against an anchor defendant that is not an addressee of a Commission decision. This may, in the English courts, give rise to various disputes as to the role of that non-addressee defendant in the cartel and, accordingly, whether a claim can in fact be sustained as against that defendant. The Court of Justice's recent judgment in Vantaan Kaupunki v Skanska Industrial Solutions potentially relieves claimants from the burden of having to establish that the non-addressee defendant participated in, or implemented, the cartel in order to sustain a claim against it, by holding that it is entire undertakings that are liable for compensation in private damages actions. The Skanska judgment harmonizes the scope of liability under the public and private spheres of EU competition law enforcement and has potentially significant ramifications for competition litigation in the English courts.

scholarly journals Stumbling Towards the UK’s New Administrative Settlement: A Study of Competition Law Enforcement After Brexit

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 233-251
Author(s):  
Joe TOMLINSON ◽  
Liza LOVDAHL GORMSEN
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Substantive Law ◽  
The Eu

AbstractWhile there has been much talk of the role of parliaments and courts in the Brexit process, far less—indeed very little—has been said about the challenges facing the largest part of the UK government: the administrative branch. Whatever results from the UK’s negotiations with the EU, Brexit will likely necessitate wide-ranging and fast-paced administrative reform in the UK. In this article, we use a detailed case study of a particular part of administration—the Competition and Markets Authority (‘CMA’)—to highlight the nature and extent of the challenges facing administrative agencies. This case study is demonstrative as, while there is an extant UK competition administration structure, competition law and its enforcement are highly Europeanised. We propose that the challenges facing administrative bodies in the UK—including the CMA—can be understood as possessing three key dimensions: internal organisation issues; external coordination issues; and substantive legal issues. We argue that, in many instances, these three dimensions will be in tension which each other. That is to say, the reality of reforming administration post-Brexit will involve trade-offs between questions of internal organisation, external coordination, and substantive law.

European Union competition law in the digital era

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Kadar
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Competition Policy ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Specific Regulation ◽  
European Competition Law ◽  
Union Competition

AbstractWhat is the role of European competition policy in the digital economy? Even if it cannot deal with all perceived issues in digital markets, competition law enforcement is the appropriate tool to remedy distortions to competition caused by market power, without the introduction of pervasive ex-ante sector-specific regulation being required. Whilst some of the proposals for reform of the European competition law legal framework recently brought may have some merit in principle, the current regime appears to be suitable and sufficiently flexible to allow the Commission to intervene effectively and remedy competitive distortions in digital markets.

scholarly journals Georgia’s First Steps in Competition Law Enforcement: The Role and Perspectives of the Private Enforcement Mechanism

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 215-236
Author(s):  
Zurab Gvelesiani
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Private Enforcement ◽  
Enforcement Mechanism ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Current Stage ◽  
Research Studies

The goal of this article is to assess the role and perspectives of the private enforcement of competition law mechanism in Georgia. The discussion starts with a brief review of a number of major events that have occurred in Georgia in the last two decades, which have shaped its competition law. The paper provides next an assessment of the current stage of the development of Georgian competition legislation, the necessity for a private enforcement model as well as the rules and legal tools offered by existing Georgian law in that regard. Outlined are also a number of challenges that must be overcome in order for Georgia to develop a successful and effective private enforcement system. The examination is based on a wide range of Georgian legislation; the interpretations provided are supported by existing enforcement practice, views of experts and scholars, research studies, reports and surveys from various national and international organizations.

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