This volume contains the papers presented at the annual Concurrences Journal conference held on 21 February 2014 at the French Ministry for the Economy. After the traditional « State of the Union », presented by Vice President Joaquín Almunia in the context of the « after » economic crisis, the papers adress four main issues: • Detection of anticompetitive practices: Should existing tools be revised or new tools introduced? Leniency, market surveys, financial reward… • Patents: Can antitrust authorities contribute to fixing the dysfunctional patent system? • European Competition Network 10 years after & EC Regulation 1/2003: Can cooperation be extended to merger control and advocacy? • Restructuring firms in the context of crisis: What role for merger policy? The volume ends by a contribution of Minister Benoît Hamon on the French class action. This work was published in the collection under the scientific direction of Professor Laurence Idot.

This book introduces the reader to key legal provisions and case-law related to the procedural and substantive issues that may arise in damages litigation for breach of anti-competitive agreements and abuses of a dominant position prohibitions. For the past decade, academic publications have focused on the proposal for a Directive on damages actions, then the Directive 2014/104/EU of 26 November 2014 itself, and finally the transposition texts. However, this understandable interest should not lead to overlook the fact that the Directive has been applied very little until now. This is mainly due to its application ratione temporis. In addition to the fact that Member States only transposed the Directive between the end of 2016 and 2018, Article 22 of the Directive provides that the substantive rules contained in the Directive cannot be applied to infringements subsequent to the national laws transposing them, while the procedural rules of the Directive apply to proceedings commenced on or after 26 December 2014. Thus, it is prior domestic law that continues to govern the vast majority of cases before national courts in the “Pre-Directive era.” In addition, a number of issues of the utmost importance have not been addressed by the Directive, such as questions of international jurisdiction or the quantification of “interests.” For these reasons, it seemed necessary not to limit this book to commenting on the Directive, important as it is, but to go beyond it. Directed by Rafael Amaro, this book contains the contributions from leading academics, attorneys, jurists and economists in the field of the private enforcement of competition law. It is composed of thematic chapters dealing with matters such as applicable law in international litigation, limitation, quantification of damages, from both a European Union and a national perspective, as well as national chapters presenting the state of play in several European States.

In twenty years, the globalization of trade has led to a change in scale that has upset the balance of power between the players in online containerized maritime transport and the logistics chain passing through European seaports. Three global shipping alliances dominate 90% of online containerized maritime transport, while further integrating port activities. Twelve Asian ports, eight of which are Chinese, are now among the top fifteen in the world. At the same time, Chinese interests, supported by public authorities and resources, are taking control of terminals and port companies in Europe, as part of the geopolitical project of the New Silk Roads. This economic and industrial context is emblematic of the challenges facing European competition law, which has so far accompanied rather than controlled these transformations. European competition rules will have to be mobilized in a global context, alongside the new rules on the control of foreign direct investment. This study takes stock of the new regulatory challenges in this sector of prime importance for the Union.

This volume contains papers presented at the 18th Annual EU Competition Law and Policy Workshop. The papers examine means of balancing effective (public) competition law enforcement and the requirements of legitimate and accountable exercise of public authority. The authors address the design and performance of various enforcement tools at European and national levels, including sanctions and remedies but also distinctive instruments under Regulation 1/2003 (eg commitment procedures) and under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 106(3) when used as a basis for infringement procedures). From the perspective of legitimacy, reflections focus on the implications of fundamental rights standards and general principles of law for the EU's complex and quasi-federal enforcement architecture. Issues that may sometimes escape judicial scrutiny are also discussed, such as how agencies prioritise their activities, and how investigation responsibilities are distributed within the European Competition Network. Effectiveness and legitimacy are then considered in the context of public enforcement cooperation beyond the EU, where international organisations, regional cooperation and a range of formal and informal modes of governance prevail.

Large digital platforms have been in the doghouse of antitrust decision-makers worldwide in recent years. Antitrust regulators agree, urgent intervention is needed. Interestingly, it is the plight of victimized suppliers--of merchants, app developers, publishers, platform labourers, and the like, who are upstream in the value chain--that has topped the policy agenda, prompting scrutiny of an almost unprecedented intensity. Amid such anxieties, Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays asks a somewhat provocative question: Are upstream platform power plays really 'competition problems', and ones for antitrust, at that? The apparently obvious answer--'yes'--is deceptively simple for a number of reasons. Firstly, it contradicts contemporary antitrust's single-minded focus on consumers, which has all but erased supplier exploitation in the brick-and-mortar economy from the policy's radar. Secondly, the wider antitrust community remains bitterly divided when it comes to judging platform practices. In addition, if any consensus could be had, it would almost certainly confirm the longstanding tenet that antitrust cannot be about supplier welfare, as such. These paradoxes call for a policy introspection-precisely what this book provides. The analysis offered in Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays is altogether normative, theoretical, and practical. Normative because it engages in a supplier-mindful soul-searching exercise, which advances our understanding of antitrust's foundations; theoretical as it sheds multidisciplinary insights on upstream effects in the platform economy and develops new frameworks for rationalizing them; and practical since it takes a deep dive into the complex antitrust machinery whilst staying attuned to other available levers of public action. Answering a compelling question with an equally compelling answer, this work will appeal to scholars and policymakers worldwide with a particular interest in platform regulation, antitrust, and powerful digital platforms.

This is the first EU competition law treatise that fully integrates economic reasoning in its treatment of the decisional practice of the European Commission and the case-law of the European Court of Justice. Since the European Commission's move to a "more economic approach" to competition law reasoning and decisional practice, the use of economic argument in competition law cases has become a stricter requirement. Many national competition authorities are also increasingly moving away from a legalistic analysis of a firm's conduct to an effect-based analysis of such conduct, indeed most competition cases today involve teams composed of lawyers and industrial organisation economists. Competition law books tend to have either only cursory coverage of economics, have separate sections on economics, or indeed are far too technical in the level of economic understanding they assume. Ensuring a genuinely integrated approach to legal and economic analysis, this major new work is written by a team combining the widely recognised expertise of two competition law practitioners and a prominent economic consultant. The book contains economic reasoning throughout in accessible form, and, more pertinently for practitioners, examines economics in the light of how it is used and put to effect in the courts and decision-making institutions of the EU. A general introductory section sets EU competition law in its historical context. The second chapter goes on to explore the economics foundations of EU competition law. What follows then is an integrated treatment of each of the core substantive areas of EU competition law, including Article 101 TFEU, Article 102 TFEU, mergers, cartels and other horizontal agreements and vertical restraints.

Innovation and standardization might seem polar opposites, but over many years various scholars have noted close connections between the two. This Handbook assembles a broad range of thinking on this subject, with contributions from several disciplinary perspectives by over 30 leading scholars and experienced practitioners. Collectively, they summarize and synthesize the existing body of knowledge – theory and evidence – pertaining to standards and innovation, and provide insights into how this knowledge can be useful to scholars, industrial strategists, policy-makers and standards practitioners.