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http://www.professorgeradin.blogs.com/
Archived: 01/08/2009 at 18:48:19
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Regulation through Agencies in the EU: A New Paradigm of European Governance
The Liberalization of State Monopolies in the European Union (EUROPEAN MONOGRAPHS Volume 23)
The WTO and Global Convergence in Telecommunications and Audio-Visual Services
The next lunch talk of the GCLC will take place on 29 January. Damien and John Temple Lang (Cleary Gottlieb) will review the Commission's Guidance on Article 82 EC. The talk will focus on pricing abuses, i.e. rebates, predatory pricing, etc. See below for registration form.
I have just posted a new paper on ssrn. Here's the abstract:
While the granting of rebates is a common commercial practice largely used by dominant and non-dominant firms, the assessment of rebates is one of the most complex and unsettled areas of competition law. In the EU, the decisional practice of the European Commission and the case-law of the Community courts have been harshly criticized as unnecessarily strict, following a form-based approach that sits uneasily with modern economic theory. In response, DG COMP published in December 2005 a Discussion Paper that promotes an effects-based approach to the assessment of rebates. This approach was recently confirmed in the Guidance Paper of the Commission on Article 82 EC published by in December 2008. US courts have generally shown greater deference to conditional rebates adopted by dominant firms, but the case-law remains unsettled, notably in the area of bundled rebates. Against this background, this paper proposes an analytical framework, based on a three-step test, designed to separate pro-competitive rebates from anti-competitive ones. A particular emphasis will be placed on the treatment of single product retroactive rebates, which create complex issues.
The School of Economics and Management of Lund University and the Law Department of the Copenhagen Business School hold in February a conference entitled Competition Law in a Global Perspective - Challenges and Trends. See here for more details.
The financial crisis still dominates the news and supposedly will for a while. In this context, Lexxion Publishers organise a workshop to discuss and work out the implications of the financial crisis on European State aids and the legal framework. It is scheduled for 20 February 2009 at the King's College London (KCL). Further details will soon be posted at www.lexxion.eu/conferences.
As usual in the area of abuse of dominance, a number of observers have (again) lamented that in Sot. Lelos kai Sia EE et al. v. GlaxoSmithKline AEVE (GSK), Article 82 EC has been brought a step further, and that the Commission, NCAs and national courts are now be able to sanction new forms of abuses.
In my opinion, there is nothing revolutionary in this case. The Court recalls that Article 82 EC applies to output limitation strategies of monopolies (something which BTW was present in some Commission decisions, such as the P&I decision). In line with basic economic theory, the judgment thus embodies the idea that a monopoly shall not refuse to satisfy orders of customers, provided the latter are ready to compensate for its costs (the allocative inefficiency of the monopoly, see triangle above).
This interpretation, which suggests that the Court's judgment is based on elementary principles of economics, tempers the hackneyed criticism of the judgment as a new iteration of the market integration "dogma". It also suggests that the ruling is not sector-specific, but applies to sectors other than pharmaceuticals.
Of course, there are areas of concerns (e.g. remedies). But I don't share the clichéd view that the ECJ ruling is - and a fortiori that all Article 82 EC rulings are - nonsensical.
The slides of Jose Luis Buendia Sierra's excellent presentation are now available on the GCLC website.
Two weeks ago, my assistant E. Fegatilli and I, spoke at a conference on the strategic use of legislation in Luxembourg.
I attach the slides of the presentation. A paper - and a book comprising the conference proceedings - will follow shortly.
The French press reports that two top-management executives from St Gobain - which was fined last month a hefty 896.000.000 € for cartel infringement - have just been fired.
The collateral damages of administrative fines are increasingly high... With directors' disqualification as a follow-on corporate punishment, the deterrent effect of the Commission's fining policy is on the rise.
Last week University College London hosted a forum on the Financial Crisis and its implications for State Aid and Competition Policy.
I attach the presentations delivered by J. Vickers and L. Evans
The Canadian Competition Bureau has designed a "trivia game", which seeks to help the business community understand its obligations under the antitrust law. See here (you must click on the second hyperlink).
I found this on the ICN website, which btw is really worth visiting (it contains a myriad of useful information).
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