Rhetoric of Belonging and Transnational Appropriation in the Development and Marketing of the Bulgarian Popular Feature Love.net

This article focuses on issues of representation and belonging, in an attempt to uncover how popular cinema in Bulgaria caters to national sensitivities while at the same time making the link with the global film industries. The Bulgarian popular feature Love.net (Ilian Djevelekov, 2011) is an example of the shift towards treating filmmaking in Bulgaria as a business as much as a cultural venture. It emerged as part of broader European trends, which put an emphasis on film development, marketing and stars, with the aim to counter Hollywood’s dominant market position. Love.net focuses on the role of the Internet as facilitating love, relations and communication in the contemporary world. On a textual level, and similarly to Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003), it explores the six degrees of separation theory, implicitly advocating for a world of interconnectedness. Contextually, Love.net created a sense of virtual belonging among the local online community, allowing them to participate in the film’s development and engage with its interactive marketing. Transnational stars provided a further point of contact and involvement. Through its mixed cast featuring home-grown and locally popular foreign actors, Love.net both channelled and challenged Hollywood, positioning European cinema as similar in glamour and attraction but different in identity.

Die Systematisierung von Rechtfertigungsgründen im preisbezogenen Behinderungsmissbrauch nach Art. 102 AEUV

Low-price strategies of undertakings with a dominant market position are often subject to an inadequate abuse-analysis evaluation for the individual case. Thus, a systematic integration of grounds of justification in the examination according to Art. 102 TFEU seems overdue. In an interdisciplinary discourse, after a brief dogmatic classification, efficiency- and competition-specific anchor points are explored, which basically allow individual grounds of justification to be categorized according to application. This is followed by a differentiation in structure and content. The integration of reliable economic knowledge is of particular importance.

The Role of Marketing in Shaping the Development of the Market of Organic Farming Products in Poland

The natural environment is one of the areas of sustainable development. The implementation of the goals of sustainable development is associated with the creation of conditions supporting ecological behaviours as well as the greening of consumption. It cannot be ignored that the implementation of behavioural marketing concepts contributed to the development of excessive consumerism, whereas the use of marketing innovations by enterprises with high strategic potential and dominant market position often translated into shortening product life cycles. In this context, there arises a research question concerning the role that marketing has to perform nowadays, and the challenges to its concept, resulting from sustainable development. The paper is based on literature studies and the results of an empirical research that was performed on a sample of 140 entities shaping the offer of organic farming products in Poland. The study included both organic farming entities and entities dealing with the distribution of organic farming products in Poland. The goal of the paper is to show the role of marketing as a multi-paradigmatic concept in shaping the development of the market of organic farming products in Poland. The analysis of the research results aimed at identifying the reasons for introducing organic farming products by distributors into their offer, as well as showing the nature of the relationships between producers and distributors of organic farming products in Poland. The analysis of the research results shows that the relationships between producers and distributors of organic farming products in Poland are perceived by both parties as long-term and based on trust. Special attention is also paid to the hierarchy of factors stimulating the development of sales of organic farming products in Poland. Identification of stimulants for the development of the market of organic farming products indicates the great importance of marketing in this area because the main factors of development of this market are of marketing nature or are inherently related to marketing.

Multi-criteria Evaluation of Railway Transport Using Evaluation Method

The arrival of new customers along the new Iron Silk Road also brings new transport opportunities. The liberalization of railway transport has created many wagons over the railway market throughout the EU, especially in the field of freight transport. Choosing the preferable carrier that can fit the needs of customers is challenging. Each rail freight operator currently shapes its profile by focusing on a specific group of commodities as a matter of priority. By specializing, they gain a dominant market position in their sector that helps them to maintain and expand their clientele. The article aims at bringing a decisive system with clear rules and standards for choosing the right business partner in the freight railway market. The article is designed as a case study that starts with an analysis of four different freight carriers. Other parts of the article are about the evaluation of their ability to meet the needs of a customer.

Through the Anti-Monopoly Lens: What Constitutes ‘Unfairly High Patent Pricing’ in China?

This article proposes that a patentee’s unilateral pricing of proprietary technology should be presumed legal per se under Sec. 55 IPR immunity framework provided by the Anti-Monopoly Law, unless a plaintiff overcomes all three of the following hurdles with actual evidence: (i) the patentee enjoys a dominant market position; (ii) such pricing constitutes de facto refusal to deal with or significant ‘margin squeeze’ for subsequent or follow-on innovators; and (iii) the constructive refusal or ‘margin squeeze’ would likely foreclose dynamic competition. This seemingly high evidentiary burden is justified by three cumulative resources: (i) the very patent mechanism in facilitating innovation, including a solid promise of supra-competitive profit through the right to lawfully exclude competition by imitation, and thus the instigation of a virtuous circle of dynamic competition through pivoting on the critical link of competition by substitution; (ii) the prevalent cautious attitude in sister jurisdictions when dealing with the concept; and (iii) the inevitable limitations of antitrust law, manifested in the administrative and error costs due to lack of proper information and economic analysis methodologies on dynamic efficiency. Through a detailed illustration with six specific scenarios, we see in a quasi-quantitative way that the actual likelihood of unilateral foreclosure on dynamic competition, even in the case of a monopolist patentee, is extremely low despite the existence of a theoretical possibility. Facing this meager likelihood and information deficiency, it would be unwise for a Chinese court to incur enormous costs of searching for a possibility in every case, with the mere guidance of a vague rule-of-reason framework.

AN ENHANCED TECHNO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LCOE: PUBLIC INCENTIVES VS PRIVATE INVESTMENT

This paper offers a new approach for the estimation of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by considering the shareholder internal rate of return (IRR) as an unexplored measure in this kind of analysis. The study relies on a comprehensive techno-economic evaluation based on interactions among a set of factors. This mathematical model is then empirically tested for a CSP power plant in Extremadura (Spain) due to their dominant market position and also for being the most developed renewable system at the present. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to establish the influence that market conditions have on the determination of LCOE for different scenarios under the maintenance of a given shareholder IRR for investors. This last assumption makes investment decisions indifferent among several projects in order to focus solely on the minimization of the LCOE. Results reveal that while the annual net electricity production contributes to the reduction of LCOE, total investments, equity percentage and operation and maintenance (O&M) costs help to increase their value by a high percentage. This study gives important scientific basis for investment decision making and also becomes a standpoint to design suitable public incentives that may enhance future technological developments in the CSP generation industry.

Standard-Essential Patents: Conditions for Filing for an Injunction Without Abusing a Dominant Market Position

Philips v Wiko

The Rise and Fall of Regulatory Competition in Corporate Insolvency Law in the European Union

In this article, I discuss the rise and fall of regulatory competition in corporate insolvency law in the European Union. The rise is closely associated with the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR, 2002), and it is well documented. The UK has emerged as the ‘market leader’, especially for corporate restructurings. The fall is about to happen, triggered by a combination of factors: the recasting of the EIR (2017), the European Restructuring Directive (ERD, 2019) and Brexit (2019). The UK will lose its dominant market position. I present evidence to support this hypothesis.

Exclusive Distribution and Non-Compete Clause in Trade: Transnational Agreements in European Union and United States

Exclusive distribution agreements are commonly used in both European Union (EU) and United States (US) markets to ensure the efficient distribution of products and services. This article compares the competition legislation in the EU and US and focuses on the differences in the treatment of vertical agreements. This topic is addressed also from an economic perspective and focuses on the possible abuse of dominant market position by international multisectoral companies. This article focuses on the following legal and economic questions: how do competition legislations regulating vertical agreements differ in EU and US and, what kind of possible effects do transnational exclusive distribution agreements have on international trade and competition. In EU law exclusive distribution agreements, even those which include a non-compete obligation limited to five years, are considered as lawful restrictions on competition as long as they fulfil certain criteria listed in the Block Exemption Regulation. EU competition law recognizes the terms of block exemption and ‘safe haven’, whereas the US antitrust law does not regulate any exemptions to vertical restraints. Vertical restraints are interpreted in the US common law of antitrust in the light of the principle of Rule of Reason. An important difference in these jurisdictions is the definition of relevant markets, which is taken into consideration when evaluating the legality of a vertical agreement under competition law. Both jurisdictions emphasize the market power of the producer, but the allowed percentage of market share varies between EU and US and only EU legislation gives emphasis to the market power of the distributor. These differences in competition legislations regulating vertical agreements can lead to conflicts when interpreting the legality of a distribution agreement. The definition of relevant product markets might lead to big international multisectoral companies abusing their dominant position by entering into exclusive arrangements.