Directive 98/34: Don't let barriers stop your success!

Sometimes the enthusiasm of the Commission's PR people is exhilarating. DG Enterprise has recently released a informative video about the notification procedure according to directive 98/34/EC. The notification procedure obligates Member States to submit proposals for national technical regulation dealing with issues that have not been regulated by harmonising measures. As I am currently working with the directive at the Swedish National Board of Trade, I cannot but share this exciting short video to the public.

Enjoy!

I got published!

You can download my article entitled "Preventing the Cure: Corporate Compliance Programmes in EU Competition Law Enforcement" here.

Some fun reading for this week....

I know I should get a bigger post concerning a current issue together, but my thesis writing has been flowing quite well...which obviously means no time to write about anything else. For now, some links for this week....

Almunia on committments, remedies and settlements

Almunia on the Microsoft fine

Advances on private enforcement in the UK?

Daniel Sokol's new article "Policing the firm"

ECN Brief 1/2003

Breaking news: The Commission fines Microsoft €561 million for non-compliance with commitments

See here

Some fun reading for the week...

The Commission is being sued for damages because it has supposedly encouraged a breach of Article 101 TFEU which it later punished.

AG Kokott gives a controversial opinion on legal advice in the context of competition law infringements

The CJEU has given judgments in Åkerberg Fransson and Melloni

The Commission prohibits a merger between Ryanair and Aer Lingus (again)

Bruno Lasserre writes on Compliance as an Effective Tool of Competition Enforcement: The French Example

ThyssenKrupp files a constitutional complaint before the BVerfG alleging that the Commission and or the CJEU has breached Human rights obligations

Samsung overtakes Apple as no. 1 smart device producer

Samsung has now overtaken Apple as the no. 1 producer of smart devices. According to this article by techdigitt.com, Samsung shipped 250 million units in 2012, whilst Apple came in second with 218.7 million devices. However, Samsungs crowning does not seem to have been taken at the expense of Apple, which increased its total shipping rate by comparison to 2011. Perhaps all the patent wars between IT-technology producers is just a sign that competition in certain consumer technology markets is as fierce as ever?

Publication of the week: Stranger in a Strange Land: An Outsider's View of Antitrust and the Courts

 

By Neil Komesar, published in 41 Loyola University Chicago L.J. 443 2009-2010. For those with HeinOnline access, here is the link.

 

This weeks publication is one of the few examples where a scholarly paper is both educational and enjoyable to read.  Neil Komesar uses his comparative institutional approach to assess whether (private) court or agency enforcement of (US) competition law would be preferrable. He argues that agency enforcement should be preferred to the (in the US more common) private enforcement, because the Court system has very little resources to devote to big and complicated antitrust ligitation. Judges are furthermore not usually experts on competition law and thus liable to make many mistakes. While competition agencies might be easier to influence than the judiciary, Komesar holds that the larger resources and the expertise held by competition agencies outweigh the possible bias. He even holds that competition agencies appear to avoid bias by hearing both sides to a case.

While I agree with Komesar's analysis for the most part, I am a bit less certain that bias is not a problem in competition agencies. While this may be true for the US (I'm really not expert enough to say), in the EU, the Commission is frequently a party to cases as well as the prosecutor in cases, which makes avoiding bias more difficult. The Commission has tried to avoid bias by creating the role of the hearing officer, but this role seems to be too small to disperse doubts about bias.

In any case, Komesar's article, and indeed his books, are a great read for anyone interested in competition law and/or  institutional law & economics!