This book examines the treatment of joint ventures (JVs) in EU Competition Law, and at the same time provides a comparison with US law. It starts with an analysis of the rather elusive concept of JV, encompassing both concentrative JVs (subject to merger control) and non-concentrative JVs. Although focused on possible definitions of joint ventures in terms of competition law, it also includes a broader perspective (going beyond competition law) on the different legal models of structuring cooperation links between undertakings. At the core of the book is an attempt to build an analytical model for the assessment of JVs in terms of antitrust law, especially as regards Article 101 of the TFEU. The analytical model used proposes a set of sequential analytical levels, taking into account structural factors and specific factors related to the main constituent elements of the functional programmes of JVs. The model is applied to a substantive assessment of four main types of JVs identified on the basis of their prevailing economic function: research and development JVs; production JVs; commercialization JVs; and purchasing JVs. Also covered are particular situations of joint ownership of undertakings falling short of joint control. In the concluding part of the book recent developments in JV antitrust law are put into context within the wider reform of EU Competition Law. The book is also comprehensively updated with the latest developments concerning the reform of the EU framework of horizontal cooperation between undertakings that took place at the end of 2010.

This fascinating new book dissects, from a Competition law perspective, how Research and Development collaborations operate under both US and EU antitrust law. Analyzing the evolution of this innovation landscape from the 1970s to the present day, Blom

This dissertation compares the approaches adopted in the EU competition law and the U.S.antitrust law towards joint ventures. The question is two-fold, including (i) the study of the specific problems raised by the strict conceptualisation of joint ventures under the EU policy, as compared to the U.S; and (ii) the possible insights the U.S. experience could offer in this area. This study demonstrates that the categorical approach in the EU has involved, over time, a number of specific issues that have been avoided in the U.S.. These relate, in particular, to the concepts employed to make the jurisdictional distinction between the mutually exclusive rules for mergers and horizontal agreements, which have caused a number of complications and led to unnecessary forum shopping. These differences are explained and their implications analysed in an attempt to help understand the approaches chosen and to explore how the EU policy could be further developed. It emerges from this comparison that some of the highly technical issues concerning the legal characterization of joint ventures have, over time, reflected more fundamental differences in the enforcement attitude towards industrial cooperation between competitors as compared to mergers, including a different understanding of their effects on competition. This concerns, in particular, the controversial European concentration privilege favoring mergers and concentrative joint ventures over more limited cooperative alliances, whereas the U.S. enforcers have normally treated full integrations more suspect than partial ones. Inspiring from the insights learned by studying the US approach, this dissertation concludes with a recommendation to revisit and clarify the EU approach to joint ventures in two specific areas. First, it calls for an explanation on how the substantive analysis of joint ventures under Article 101 TFEU compares with that of mergers, particularly in relation to the assessment of market power. Second, it suggests that the fate of Article 2(4) EUMR concerning the treatment of spill-over collusion be reconsidered in the current framework, including a clarification of its current function and purpose, if any.

Rev. edition of : "Merger control in the EU," edited by Peter Verloop, 3rd rev. ed., 1999.

This book is Volume II of a two-volume set on antitrust policy, analyzing the economic efficiency and moral desirability of various kinds of antitrust-policy-coverable conduct and various possible government responses to such conduct, including US and EU antitrust law. The overall study consists of three parts. Part I (Chapters 1-8) introduces readers to the economic, moral, and legal concepts that play important roles in antitrust-policy analysis. Part II (Chapters 9-16) analyzes the impacts of eight types of conduct covered by antitrust policy and various possible government responses to such conduct in terms of their economic efficiency, their impact on liberal moral rights, and their instantiation of various utilitarian and other egalitarian conceptions of the moral good. Part III (Chapters 17-18) provides detailed information on US antitrust law and EU competition law and compares the extent to which—when correctly interpreted and applied—these two bodies of law could increase economic efficiency, protect liberal moral rights, and instantiate various morally defensible conceptions of the moral good. This second volume contains the last 6 chapters of Part II, which focus respectively on horizontal (M&A)s, conglomerate (M&A)s, surrogates for vertical integration, vertical (M&A)s, joint ventures, and internal growth and Part III, which focuses on US antitrust law and EU competition law. The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students of economics and law who are interested in welfare economics, antitrust policy, and The General Theory of Second Best.