"The principal aim of this book is to chart the emergence of experimentalist governance in the implementation of EU competition law as a combined response both to subsidiarity concerns in EU federalism and to an increasingly dynamic and heterogeneous economic environment. The book will contribute to ongoing debates about the current state of EU competition law and supply an alternative account of both emergent trends and its future direction. By focussing on experimentalist governance it is offering a truly innovative perspective on the question of the implementation of EU competition law"--

By their nature, remedies are central to competition law enforcement and represent the yardstick against which the efficiency of the overall system can be measured. Yet very rarely have remedies been treated in a horizontal and comprehensive manner from the combined perspectives of substance, process and policy. The present volume, developed in partnership with the College of Europe’s Global Competition Law Centre (GCLC), provides coherent, practical, and authoritative commentaries by leading experts from the GCLC’s incomparable network. The contributions – originally presented at the 2019 GCLC annual conference – examine remedies to assess the overall effectiveness of competition law enforcement in merger, antitrust and State aid matters. The overall topic is presented under five headings: objectives and limitations of remedies; types of remedies in competition law enforcement; implementation and process; ex post assessment of remedies and policy lessons; and national and international approaches. The high-profile and wide-ranging group of authors includes the Director-General of the European Commission’s competition department, lawyers from major international firms, and well-known economists and academics specialising in competition law. With a sharp focus on how to make competition rules work well in today’s digital environment, this systematic and coherent analysis illuminates an issue that we need to fully grasp and understand in order to make sense of competition policy, law and enforcement in the years and decades to come.

This book looks at the changing role and nature of the regulation of State intervention in the liberalised and privatised markets of the European Union. It examines how the traditional role of the State is now challenged by European Union law, and the implications for traditional public services provided by the State. For the first time in an academic work, the book brings together the interaction of the Internal Market and the Competition rules of the European Union when they are applied to State economic activity. Individual chapters examine specific rules which address squarely the permissible role of State activity in competitive markets, for example an examination of the State aid rules, the rules in Article 86 EC regulating State monopolies and the controversial application of Articles 81 and 82 EC to the State. Other chapters examine the processes of privatisation and liberalisation with case studies on the postal sector, utilities and telecommunications.

Competition authorities are increasingly interested in understanding the impact of their activities on markets and consumers. The goal is to improve competition policy rules and decision-making practices and to get robust evidence on the benefits of competition and competition policy for society as a whole. Discussions with competition authorities, practitioners and academics have shown the need to take stock of the experience gained in this field by the European Commission and to present it in an easily accessible way. The studies collected in this volume – prepared by senior Commission officials and competition policy experts – range from the ex post evaluation of specific policy interventions to the assessment of the broader impact of competition policy. The issues and topics examined include the following: objectives and scope of evaluations by the European Commission; description of counterfactual evaluation techniques used; conditions for a successful ex post evaluation of a competition policy intervention; a wide selection of individual cases covering a variety of economic sectors; applications in merger control, antitrust and State aid; direct benefits of competition policy interventions for consumers; deterrent effects of such interventions on market participants; and macroeconomic outcomes in terms of job creation, productivity and GDP growth. This matchless book assembles within a single volume all that is needed for competition policy analysts and practitioners to undertake ex post economic evaluations. While its collection of state-of-the-art ex post evaluation studies has a clear value for competition authorities, it is sure to be welcomed as well by competition law practitioners in the private sector, who will greatly appreciate the effort made to cast a critical eye on decisions taken in the past. Moreover, it allows for addressing some of the new challenges facing competition policymakers. Fabienne Ilzkovitz is Principal Advisor responsible for the economic evaluation of competition policy within the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, and since 2014, she has coordinated various ex post evaluation projects in the Directorate-General. She is also Associate Professor of Economics in the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Adriaan Dierx is Senior Expert on ex post economic evaluation within the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. He has managed a number of studies aimed at assessing the economic impact of the European Commission’s competition policy interventions.

This book explores how the EU’s enforcement of competition law has moved from centralisation to decentralisation over the years, with the National Competition Authorities embracing more enforcement powers. At the same time, harmonisation has been employed as a solution to ensure that the enforcement of EU competition rules is not weakened and the internal market remains a level playing field. While employing a comparative law argument, the book, accordingly, analyses the need for harmonisation throughout the different stages of development of the EU’s competition law enforcement (save Merger control and State Aid), the underlying rationale, and the extent to which comparative studies have been undertaken to facilitate the harmonisation process from an historical perspective. It also covers the Directives, such as the Antitrust Damages Directive and the ECN+ Directive. Investigating both public and private enforcement, it also examines the travaux préparatoires for the enforcement legislation in order to discover the drafters’ intent. The book addresses the European and the Member States’ perspectives, namely, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, as harmonisation proceeds through dialogue and cooperation between the two levels. Lastly, it explores the extent to which harmonisation of the competition law enforcement framework has been accepted and implemented in the Member States’ legal systems, or has led to the fragmentation of the national systems of the CEE countries.

"This monograph, which was also designed as a short reference book for specialized undergraduate and graduate courses on EU law, intends to shed light on, and legally frame, the evolution of the doctrine of services of general economic interest (SGEIs). The book emphasizes the pivotal role played by SGEIs in striking a fair balance between market and social objectives. To this end, the book claims, first of all, that SGEIs have a dual nature inasmuch as they act as a limitation to/derogation from the free market and, simultaneously, as a value and positive obligation addressed at national authorities, undertakings, and EU institutions. The EU notions of access to public services and universal service are the clearest signal of such phenomenon. Secondly, the book claims that the transfer of competences from the Union to the Member States and the reaffirmation of Member States' sovereignty in crucial sectors of the economy are not the only solutions to foster social rights. In fact, this narrative is apt to undermine the foundations, spirit, and purpose of the process of European integration, especially at a time like the present, when new forms of populism and anti-Europeanism are on the rise, and when a European response is imperative to counter the spread of the coronavirus in European countries. The book concludes that SGEIs' regulation is an area of law where the EU institutions have generally successfully put into action and consolidated the social market economy principles on which the EU was founded. This is even further proof that the EU is not merely the reflection of interests linked to market completion, but also and foremost a 'Community based on the rule of law'. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in EU Law, European Public Law and EU competition law"--

Analyzing the evolution of the legal concept of State aid in the EU, this book examines the main formulas established by the Court of Justice of the EU since the early 1950s, underpinning the legal boundaries of State aid in relation to the historical, political, economic, and legal evolution of its field of application: the internal market.