This volume contains articles and panel discussions delivered during the Thirty-Seventh Annual Fordham Competition Law Institute Conference on International Antitrust Law & Policy. About the Proceedings: Every October the Fordham Competition Law Institute brings together leading figures from governmental organizations, leading international law firms and corporations and academia to examine and analyze the most important issues in international antitrust and trade policy of the United States, the EU and the world. This work is the most definitive and comprehensive annual analysis of international antitrust law and policy available anywhere. The chapters are revised and updated before publication, where necessary. As a result, the reader receives up-to-date practical tips and important analyses of difficult policy issues. The annual volumes are an indispensable guide through the sea of international antitrust law. The Fordham Competition Law Proceedings are acknowledged as simply the most definitive US/EC annual analyses of antitrust/competition law published. Each annual edition sets out to explore and analyze the areas of antitrust/competition law that have had the most impact in that year. Recent "hot topics" include antitrust enforcement in Asia, Latin America: competition enforcement in the areas of telecommunications, media and information technology. All of the chapters raise questions of policy or discuss new developments and assess their significance and impact on antitrust and trade policy.

Every October the Fordham Competition Law Institute brings together leading figures from governmental organizations, leading international law firms and corporations and academia to examine and analyze the most important issues in international antitrust and trade policy of the United States, the EU and the world. This work is the most definitive and comprehensive annual analysis of international antitrust law and policy available anywhere. Each annual edition sets out to explore and analyze the areas of antitrust/competition law that have had the most impact in that year. Recent "hot topics" include antitrust enforcement in Asia, Latin America: competition enforcement in the areas of telecommunications, media and information technology. All of the chapters raise questions of policy or discuss new developments and assess their significance and impact on antitrust and trade policy. The chapters are revised and updated before publication when necessary. As a result, the reader receives up-to-date practical tips and important analyses of difficult policy issues. The annual volumes are an indispensable guide through the sea of international antitrust law. The Fordham Competition Law Proceedings are acknowledged as simply the most definitive US/EC annual analyses of antitrust/competition law published.

This volume contains articles and panel discussions delivered during the Thirty-Ninth Annual Fordham Competition Law Institute Conference on International Antitrust Law & Policy. About the Proceedings: Every October the Fordham Competition Law Institute brings together leading figures from governmental organizations, leading international law firms and corporations and academia to examine and analyze the most important issues in international antitrust and trade policy of the United States, the EU and the world. This work is the most definitive and comprehensive annual analysis of international antitrust law and policy available anywhere. The chapters are revised and updated before publication, where necessary. As a result, the reader receives up-to-date practical tips and important analyses of difficult policy issues. The annual volumes are an indispensable guide through the sea of international antitrust law. The Fordham Competition Law Proceedings are acknowledged as simply the most definitive US/EC annual analyses of antitrust/competition law published. Each annual edition sets out to explore and analyze the areas of antitrust/competition law that have had the most impact in that year. Recent "hot topics" include antitrust enforcement in Asia, Latin America: competition enforcement in the areas of telecommunications, media and information technology. All of the chapters raise questions of policy or discuss new developments and assess their significance and impact on antitrust and trade policy.

Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position as incompatible with the internal market. Its application in practice has been controversial with goals as diverse as the preservation of an undistorted competitive process, the protection of economic freedom, the maximisation of consumer welfare, social welfare, or economic efficiency all cited as possible or desirable objectives. These conflicting aims have raised complex questions as to how abuses can be assessed and how a dominant position should be defined. This book addresses the conceptual problems underlying the tests to be applied under Article 102 in light of the objectives of EU competition law. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book covers all the main issues relating to Article 102, including its objectives, its relationship with other principles and provisions of EU law, the criteria for the assessment of individual abusive practices, and the definition of dominance. It provides an in-depth doctrinal and normative commentary of the case law with the aim of establishing an intellectually robust and practically workable analytical framework for abuse of dominance.

This is the thirteenth in a series on EU Competition Law and Policy produced under the auspices of the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. The volume contains the written contributions of numerous competition policy experts, together with the transcripts of a roundtable debate which examined the subject of "settlements" between enforcers of competition law and defendant companies in cartel cases and in other types of antitrust cases. The Workshop participants included: -- senior judges from major jurisdictions (the European Union, Germany and the United States); -- senior enforcement officials and policy makers from the European Commission, from the national competition authorities of certain EU Member States and from the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission; and -- renowned international international academics, legal practitioners and professional economists. In an intense, intimate environment, this group of experts debated a number of legal and economic issues pertaining to two broad lines of discussion: 1) settlements and plea agreements in cartel cases, including their links with leniency programs and with private enforcement; and 2) settlements in "commitment" cases decided under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 and under comparable procedures of national law.

Cartel activity is prohibited under EU law by virtue of Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Firms that violate this provision face severe punishment from those entities responsible for enforcing EU competition law: the European Commission, the national competition authorities, and the national courts. Stiff fines are regularly imposed on firms by these entities; such firm-focused punishment is an established feature of the antitrust enforcement landscape within the EU. In recent years, however, focus has also been placed on the individuals within the firms responsible for the cartel activity. It is increasingly recognized that punishment for cartel activity should be individual-focused as well as firm-focused. Accordingly, a growing tendency to criminalize cartel activity can be observed in the EU Member States. The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalizing the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalization should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy and a correctly defined criminal cartel offence) need to be in place in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy. These three particular challenges can be conceptualized respectively as the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization. This book analyses these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalization can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization and an effective antitrust criminalization policy is one which recognizes and respects this complex interaction.

This book examines the law developed by the EU to control cartels. The law, including case-law, is carefully documented and analysed against a standard of legitimacy which questions the EU's enforcement measures, its institutional structures, policy choices, substantive law, evidentiary standards and procedures and sanctions. It includes a unique catalogue of over 150 EU cartel decisions, as well as novel analyses of difficult borderline issues such as mixed horizontal and vertical cartels, single-brand dealer cartels and buyer cartels. The effect on trade in cartel cases is analysed with reference to established law and deterrence theory. Throughout the book the author asks whether EU law also applies at the national level, or whether certain assessments need to be made according to national law. This approach makes the book particularly helpful for national authorities, courts and private practitioners. The book includes in-depth comparisons with US law as well as a comprehensive survey of the secondary (academic) literature on cartels. As such it presents not only a comprehensive practical view, but also a sound theoretical framework for better understanding cartel law. This is a work which will be of utmost importance to those working in competition authorities and competition courts in the EU Member States, as well as those working for EU institutions and in private practice and academia.