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Intel Renvoi: The General Court Sets a Course to Steer the EU Through Troubled Waters journal article

Martin Toskov

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 7 (2023), Issue 2, Page 125 - 128

Case T-286/09 RENV Intel Corporation v Commission, Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition) of 26 January 2022 Just over a year ago, the General Court (GC) handed down its second judgment of the Intel saga. The judgment largely follows the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) findings from 2017.1 The case centres around the conditional rebates Intel used in its dealings with trading partners. Specifically, the place of the as-efficient-competitor (AEC) test in non-price-based abuses of dominance under Article 102(c) TFEU2 and the role of effects-based analyses in fidelity rebates. The new, more effects-based approach adopted by the GC is both welcome and necessary. It ensures that EU competition law encourages, rather than dampens, entrepreneurship and is thus a tool fit to guide the EU through the current economic difficulties.


From the As-Efficient Competitor to the Potentially As Efficient Competitor? journal article

A Reformulation Doing Justice to An Effects-Based Approach

Georgia D. Theodorakopoulou

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 7 (2023), Issue 3, Page 154 - 165

Abstract: The AEC principle could be conceived as the other side of a competition policy serving to protect competition on the merits. The principle is of primal significance to Article 102 TFEU, which the CJEU has long interpreted as applying not only to the exploitation of market power vis-à-vis customers and suppliers, but also to conduct having as its object or effect the exclusion of actual or potential competitors. The exit from the market of less efficient competitors seems to be in sync with long standing policies. However, a more nuanced interpretation of the AEC principle providing for the protection of potential and not yet as-efficient competitors would reinforce competition on the merits.


Brewing Control: the Case of Super Bock journal article

Seppe Maes, Caroline Buts, Marc Jegers

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 7 (2023), Issue 3, Page 189 - 192

Annotation on the Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 29 June 2023 in Case C-211/22 Super Bock Bebidas SA and Others v Autoridade da Concorrência In its judgment of 29 June 2023, following six questions referred for a preliminary ruling, the Court of Justice of the EU provided clarity in dealing with a vertical case involving resale price maintenance (RPM).1 A topic that had already undergone considerable evolution in existing case law, from a phenomenon that was considered as restrictive by object, following among others the Binon case, to a much more nuanced view in which the Court noted that the agreements should be assessed in their appropriate legal and economic context where the restrictive effect should be established first.


Price Signalling in Ireland: journal article

Leading the Way?

Paul K Gorecki

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 6 (2022), Issue 4, Page 294 - 305

In 2022 Ireland made two important contributions to the debate over price signalling: (i) the publication of the National Competition Agency’s (NCAs) extensive investigation into alleged anticompetitive price signalling in private motor insurance (PMI); and (ii) the enactment of legislation that makes ‘the sharing of future information on prices …’ a specific presumed by object offence. The evidence does not support the NCA’s conclusion that the public PMI premium increase announcements by five insurers, a broker and a broker representative body were either a by object or a by effect breach of competition law. There are solid grounds for following the European Union’s existing open-ended approach to adding by object breaches through the development of case law, rather than legislating specific new by object offences. The sharing of information can, depending on the circumstances, be anticompetitive or procompetitive. It is thus inappropriate to characterise sharing of information as a by object offence, without an appropriate definition and guidance. This is not to imply that the competition in the PMI market in Ireland cannot be improved, as the European Commission’s acceptance in 2022 of binding commitments from the insurers trade association easing access to a data sharing platform so as to facilitate entry demonstrates. Keywords: private motor insurance, Competition Act 2002, Competition (Amendment) Act 2022, concerted practice, tacit collusion, Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, price signalling.





Estimating Reasonable Prices for Access to Digital Platforms’ Data: journal article

What Are the Challenges?

Jordi Casanova Tormo

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 4 (2020), Issue 3, Page 172 - 184

This article reviews the competition case law and the approach of utility regulation to address excessive prices. It considers the potential challenges of applying a reasonable prices framework to access to digital platforms’ data, due to the difficulties in assessing an appropriate return on digital platforms’ investments in R&D. Following this conclusion, the article proposes to assess whether lighter forms of intervention may be sufficient to address the market failures identified and to introduce access to data if these are not likely to succeed. Keywords: reasonable prices; price regulation; digital platforms; access to data; data regulation


Hospital Mergers and the Incorporation of Non-Competition Concerns journal article

Nicole Rosenboom

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 2 (2018), Issue 4, Page 271 - 279

National competition authorities have assessed many hospital mergers over the years. During merger control proceedings, the authority determines the negative effects of the merger in the form of a potential price increase and decrease in the quality of care provided by the hospital. These assessments are difficult. Merger control can lead to heated debates and questions over whether the analysis is correct and considers all possible outcomes. To provide a full analysis of the effects of a hospital merger for all relevant actors (patients, the hospital itself, health insurers, the government, and hospital staff) the Social Cost and Benefit tool can be used. This framework is applied in other fields of economics, but it can be useful in cases that involve public interest and non-competition concerns. One could call the tool the Competition Cost and Benefit Analyses (CCBA) tool when it is adjusted for use in a merger case. This article demonstrates how the CCBA can be used and how the unique features of a national healthcare and health insurance system can be taken into account during its use. This article applies the framework to the Netherlands due to recent developments in that country and the call for more focus on public interests in merger control of Dutch hospitals. Keywords: Merger Control, Hospitals, Price, Quality