The growth in the digital economy both powerfully drives competition, but also provides challenges to global antitrust enforcement. This E-commerce Competition Enforcement Guide, edited by Claire Jeffs, looks at whether established competition tools are sufficient to deal with the challenges of the online world. Drawing on the collective wisdom and expertise of 48 distinguished experts from 22 firms and competition authorities, the Guide provides insight on the differing approaches adopted by enforcement agencies and whether a balance is being struck between maintaining a vigilant approach to the digital economy and allowing competition to flourish.--From publisher's website.

‘Digital competition’, a term and concept that has risen to the forefront of competition law, may be viewed as both promising and cautionary: on the one hand, it brings the promises of increased speed, efficiency and objectivity, and, on the other, it entails potential pitfalls such as hard-to-identify pathways to unfair pricing, dominant positions and their potential abuse, restriction of choice and abuse of personal data. Accordingly, jurisdictions around the world are taking measures to deal with the phenomenon. In this concise but thoroughly researched book – both informative and practical – lawyers from two prominent firms with specialised digital competition teams take stock and examine the state of digital competition in the enforcement practices of six competition authorities in Europe, most of these forerunners in the field of digital competition policy and enforcement. The competition authorities surveyed are those of the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. For each, an overview, spanning the period from 2012 to mid-2022 but including as many landmark cases as possible up to and including December 2022, includes not only landmark cases in which digital technologies have had a significant impact on the competition law outcome but also guidance documents such as speeches, policy statements, industry surveys and research reports. Activities and enforcement practices of the various authorities include the following and more: degree of activity; focus of the activity; enforcement styles; enforcement instruments; visible effectiveness of enforcement; and important insights and outlooks. Each overview contains separate chapters on cartel prohibition, the prohibition of abuse of a dominant position and merger control. Additional chapters – partially written by guest authors (who are all without a doubt true thought leaders: Tristan Byrne, Giuseppe Colangelo, Ai Deng, Teodora Groza, Daniel Mândrescu, Wolf Sauter, Thibault Schrépel, and Gareth Shier) – evaluate the similarities and differences in the enforcement practices and the positive and negative effects of digital competition in the jurisdictions investigated, the economic context, the most important game changers, and a concluding chapter offers recommendations. An indispensable guide to quickly and accessibly acquiring in-depth knowledge of competition law in the digital sector, this matchless volume is a must-read for any practitioner or academic who encounters competition law related to digital markets. The dilemmas and challenges of the new competition law reality – which is here already, like it or not – are clearly explained here for the benefit of regulators, academics, policymakers, judges, in-house counsel and lawyers specialising in competition law and intellectual property law.

Global Competition Enforcement New Players, New Challenges Edited by Paulo Burnier da Silveira & William Evan Kovacic In a short span of years, the landscape of global competition has changed significantly. In particular, international cooperation in competition law enforcement has greatly strengthened the battle against abuse of dominance, cartels, anticompetitive mergers and related political corruption. This thoroughly researched book explains the current situation regarding joint investigations, identifies common problems and considers possible solutions and future developments. In addition to covering issues of competition policy, its authors look in detail at practice in both merger and conduct investigations in a variety of countries. The following aspects of the subject and more are examined in depth: the interface between antitrust and anti-corruption; the digital economy’s challenges to competition authorities; convergent aims and rules among different competition authorities; regional organizations with competition mandates; competition neutrality and state-owned enterprises; and leniency programmes. Although necessarily there is considerable information on major antitrust regimes like those of the United States and the European Union, chapters by local experts highlight lessons to be learned from the work of competition authorities in five continents including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Mauritius, Mexico, Peru and South Africa. The contributors include competition enforcers, regulators, academics, practitioners and leading commentators from a range of jurisdictions. Adding up to an authoritative analysis from the enforcer’s perspective, the studies presented in the book clarify the approaches and priorities of competition enforcement authorities – including those of major emerging economies – and provide expert guidance on dealing with transnational investigations. Antitrust lawyers, corporate counsel and interested academics as well as policymakers will benefit immeasurably from this book’s wealth of informative detail.

This incisive Research Handbook identifies and assesses the emerging trends in competition enforcement, investigating how such changes impact the enforcement approach of competition authorities and the behaviour of companies in an ever-evolving business and regulatory environment.

"[This Guide takes the reader on a ‘survey’ of six competition authorities through the European landscape: (i) the European Commission (Commission), (ii) the Competition and Markets Authority (UK competition authority or CMA) and its predecessor the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), (iii) the Bundeskartellamt (German competition authority or Bka), (iv) L'Autorité de la concurrence (French competition authority or Autorité), (v) the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (Dutch competition authority or ACM) and (vi) the Autorité belge de la Concurrence/Belgische Mededingingsautoriteit (Belgian competition authority or BMA-ABC). (4) Ideally, we would like to examine all the European competition authorities, but the presence of language barriers, in particular, has led to the selection of these six competition authorities."--Introduction.

Key structuring elements of today’s digital econ-omy are digital markets and services (i.e., the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act) leading to a new season in the area of innovation policies. It is the season of the centralization of governance and enforcement powers in the hands of the European Commission, through which the European Union sets direction and speed. The direction looks forward to empowering the protagonists of the digital ecosystem and properly running the markets. The keywords of the new policies are indeed fairness, openness, and non-discrimination. The speed is the one recognized by innovation: from rigid and static obligations and prohibitions, the European commission proposed flexible and dynamic guidance, responding to market developments and requests from Member States, which recommend proposals for modernization, revision and introduction of new rules.

Private Enforcement of European Competition and State Aid Law Current Challenges and the Way Forward Edited by: Ferdinand Wollenschläger, Wolfgang Wurmnest & Thomas M.J. Möllers The overlapping European Union (EU) regimes of competition law and State aid law both provide mechanisms allowing private plaintiffs to claim compensation for losses or damages. It is thus of significant practical value to provide, as this book does, analysis and guidance on achieving enforcement of such claims, written by renowned authorities in the two fields. The book examines the two areas of law both from an EU perspective and from the perspectives of private enforcement in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. In country reports for these major jurisdictions, as well as in more general and comparative chapters, the authors focus on such issues as the following: impediments to private enforcement; which entity is liable for damages; binding effect of decisions of competition authorities; limitation of actions; collective actions and pooling of claims; enforcement of the standstill obligation (Article 108(3) TFEU); remedies and information deficits; cooperation and coordination between national courts and the European Commission; transposition of the so-called Damages Directive (Directive 2014/104/EU) by the EU Member States; extent to which the strengthening of private enforcement of competition law has a spillover effect on State aid law; and prospects for harmonisation of State aid law. A concluding section identifies enforcement deficits and proposes ways to improve the existing legal framework. As an in-depth assessment of key obstacles and best practices in private enforcement actions, this highly informative and practical volume facilitates choice of the best forum for competition and State aid law cases. Academics and practitioners engaged with this important area of European law will appreciate the authors’ awareness of the economic need and legal particularities which could generate an effective European system of private enforcement of legitimate claims under EU competition and State aid law.