The Role of National Courts in the Enforcement of EU Competition Law

2021 ◽  

This volume brings together the German national reports on the topics of the XXIX FIDE Congress. They deal with three current Union law issue areas: The role of national courts in the enforcement of Union law (application between private parties, primacy of application, principle of mutual recognition, judicial independence, effective judicial protection, duty of referral to the ECJ); the new EU data protection regime (the national concretisation of responsibilities, rights and enforcement as well as data processing for national security purposes); the digital economy as a challenge for EU competition law (antitrust relevance, market definition and market power, anti-competitive behaviour, ex-post enforcement and ex-ante regulation).


Author(s):  
Geradin Damien ◽  
Layne-Farrar Anne ◽  
Petit Nicolas

This chapter discusses the enforcement of EU competition law. EU competition law is primarily enforced through a system of ‘public enforcement’, where specialized administrative institutions initiate, decide, and terminate cases. Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are enforced by competition authorities at both the European—by the Commission—and national levels—by national competition authorities (NCAs). Since the adoption of Regulation 1/2003, the Commission and the NCAs form a ‘network’ of competition authorities called the European Competition Network (ECN). A set of specific legal mechanisms have been adopted to ensure a harmonious and effective enforcement of EU competition rules amongst the ECN. In addition, national courts also offer a remedial avenue for plaintiffs seeking to invoke EU competition rules. The chapter then looks at how the Commission and NCAs process competition cases. In general, a competition case goes through four stages: detection, investigation, evaluation, and decision.


2019 ◽  
pp. 686-698
Author(s):  
Elspeth Berry ◽  
Matthew J. Homewood ◽  
Barbara Bogusz

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter discusses the enforcement of EU competition law. It covers the enforcement regime; burden of proof; the relationship between Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, and national competition laws; cooperation with national authorities; cooperation with national courts; the powers of the competition authorities of the Member States; the European Commission’s powers; safeguards for undertakings; the 2006 Leniency Notice; and private enforcement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-487
Author(s):  
Or Brook

Abstract This article questions the common view that the modernization of EU competition law has removed public policy considerations from the public enforcement of Article 101 TFEU. Based on a large quantitative and qualitative database including all of the Commission’s and five national competition authorities’ enforcement actions (N ≈ 1,700), it maintains that modernization has merely shifted the consideration of public policy from the substantive scope of Article 101(3) TFEU to procedural priority setting decisions. Instead of engaging in a complex balancing of competition and public policy considerations, the competition authorities have simply refrained from pursuing cases against anticompetitive agreements that raise public policy questions or settled those cases by accepting negotiated remedies. This outcome, the article claims, is a double-edged sword. The Commission’s attempt to narrow down the scope of Article 101(3) as part of modernization has not eliminated the role of public policy in the enforcement. Rather, undertakings can reasonably assume that restrictions of competition that produce some public policy objectives will not be enforced, even if they do not meet the conditions for an exception. These discretionary nonenforcement decisions have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness, uniformity, and legal certainty of EU competition law enforcement. JEL: K21, K230


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Andrew Leitch

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.


Author(s):  
Matthew J. Homewood

This chapter focuses on Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 102 prohibits, as incompatible with the internal market, any abuse by undertakings in a dominant position within the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States. It should be noted at the outset that ‘dominance’ itself is not prohibited, but only when such dominance is accompanied with abusive behaviour that may affect trade. Like Article 101, Article 102 is enforced by the European Commission, national competition authorities, and national courts under powers conferred by Regulation 1/2003.


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